Katya cursed, and many eyes turned to her. “We need to contact Layna.”
*
Kali closed her eyes in concentration, contemplating her next move. The unfortunate events which had exposed her true intentions to the tribe had forestalled her original plans, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. She already had a new direction in mind. The Lost Ones would pay; she would make sure of it.
She looked into the scrying glass once more and ran a hand over the surface, making the image of the giant dome over the city of Naoham ripple.
So the Lost Ones thought they had it under control by containing the spread with their little dome, did they? She would have to disabuse them of this notion. Kali sent out her probes, tasting the energies in the surrounding areas, sending her tendrils of magic farther and farther in search. Hours passed, but she paid no heed to the time. Finally, she found what she was looking for, in a small village in what the Lost Ones called Treymayne. She watched the image in the glass-like pool, a smile forming on her face.
A young woman sat beside a bed, dabbing the brow of a man as he tossed and turned in an uneasy sleep. His feverish thralls threw the blankets off him, revealing his sweat-covered body beneath. The young woman hastily restored them, returning them to their position while the man continued his flailing. The woman looked on, concern marring her pretty little face.
Another woman walked into the room and handed the sitting girl a new bowl of water, presumably cooler, and she gratefully handed the old one back.
“How is he?” the newcomer asked, setting the bowl down and moving across the floor to lay a hand on the man’s forehead. He flinched at the touch, jerking his head back and forth.
“Ever since he visited his mother in Naoham he’s been getting sicker,” the young woman reported, biting her lip in worry.”
“There’s gossip,” the other said hesitantly, “that there is some sort of illness plaguing the citizens. It is possible that he caught it while he was there.”
“It has to just be winter sickness,” the young woman disagreed, shaking her head firmly, “people get them all the time.”
“Not this bad,” the other whispered, then raised her voice. “There is the very real possibility that he is contagious with whatever it is. It would be best if we moved him up to the caves.”
“You want me to leave him to die?” the young woman shot at her, throwing her arms around the writhing man’s neck.
“No,” the older woman said hastily, “but he shouldn’t be in the center of town like this, what if we are spreading it to everyone we know? Do you next want to see your sister and your mother lying on the bed like this?” she gestured to the man.
The young woman was silent a moment. “No…”
“Good,” said the other, “We’ll move him in the morning. But we won’t leave him alone out there to die. I will stay with the two of you and travel back and forth to the village for supplies when we need them.”
Kali withdrew from her observation. This was exactly what she had been looking for. Now, she just had to find the perfect person to give this information to.
CHAPTER 5
Layna and Gryffon sat with their Council in the meeting room, staring into the mirror into the somber faces of the Ieldran. It was a position that was becoming all too familiar, but getting more and more uncomfortable every time. It seemed that it was always bad news getting relayed rather than issues being resolved.
“Our mages haven’t been able find a way to break the spell either, despite having much more experience and talent than most of yours,” Heinrich was saying, and Layna bit her lip to keep from retorting. He was constantly bringing up the fact that her mages had been handicapped by the previous laws which curtailed their talent. From what she had witnessed, it seemed that their sudden freedom with their magic had brought out quite a bit of creativity, but it wasn’t worth pointing this out to him.
“So we are no farther than we were at our last meeting,” she sighed instead.
“You said that you have a party which is currently near the tribe’s village?” Lady Aria asked, referring to Katya and the Knights.
“Yes,” Gryffon acknowledged, “though we have not had the chance to contact them recently. They know to report if something useful is found, but the wild magic has been interfering with our attempts to get in touch with them.”
“You should have them take the powerstone,” Heinrich said. They had relayed the information about the stones which had been used to try and solidify the spell, and how Katya’s brave deed had kept them from being able to make the spell permanent. “If the tribe thought that all of them could make the spell unbreakable, would it not also stand to reason that together they could break it?”
Excited murmuring broke out.
“Can we justify taking the powerstones from them?” Layna asked.
“Why not?” Whitcomb countered, “you said it yourself that all of the tribes were involved with the curse. The Myaamia might have orchestrated it, but they all were accomplices.”
“True,” a woman on their Council agreed, “But we don’t know what the stones do for them.”
“Or what their removal might mean,” added another man on the Ieldran.
“Or even if they realized what exactly they were helping to do.”
“So you’d rather let the majority of our population turn into monsters who will then eat the remainder?” asked Lord Guirette.
Everyone fell silent. It was true, the alternative was bleak, and so far, this had been the first new idea.
“I will discuss the possibility with our people,” Layna said quietly. “I am not saying that I will ask them to steal them, but I will ask them to explore options.”
The meeting soon came to an end, with most other issues on hold until the life-threatening one was resolved, and the six Council members left them alone to contact Katya.
“Katya,” Layna greeted her friend, glad to be speaking to a friendly face when the mirror shimmered and reformed, “Please tell me you have good news.”
Katya was silent a moment. “I’m afraid that the most pressing news is bad news,” she said finally, “we’ve discovered that the curse of the tribe was mutated into spreading some kind of blood-magic rather than the intended curse. My guess would be that Kali somehow altered it. She seems to be the one who arranged the nasty events up here.”
Layna laughed humorlessly, earning her a confused look from Katya. “Well, we have come to that conclusion ourselves recently, though we believe that the interference was actually the control spell that Telvani was performing. My laugh was just that at least your bad news wasn’t something even worse. I keep thinking that it can’t get any worse, and then the universe proves me wrong. How did you come across this information?”
Katya relayed how the Dena’ina had approached the Knights and that it had led them to find their way inside the village. Layna and Gryffon looked at each other excitedly.
“What are the dynamics of the tribe?” Gryffon asked, cutting into her explanation.
“What do you mean?”
“One of the Ieldran suggested that we take the powerstones from the tribe and use them all together to break the spell since they were going to use all of them together to make it unbreakable. Layna and I are hesitant since we don’t really know how much the tribe was involved in the curse, but...”
“That makes sense. I don’t know much about the stones yet; even the majority of the tribe was unaware of their existence – or at least their significance – until this whole situation came out. Finding all of them could potentially be useful. As far as the dynamics of the tribe, interestingly, the Myaamia just retrieved theirs to try and break the curse for us.”
“They what?” Layna asked, astonished.
“Yes, after much prodding, they came to realize the faults in the actions of the Elders, and were finally exposed to the lies that had been told to them. Most of the tribe believed that what they were doing to Phoenix was to help c
ure her of some ailment so that she would be healthy to rule. The tribe is not all bad.”
“What happened when they tried to break it?” Gryffon asked.
“They were unable to do it,” she informed them, “they neither had the essences of the other tribes’ powerstones as they did when performing the original spell, nor is it exactly the same spell they put on her anymore. They were unsuccessful.”
“Do you think you can get the other tribes’ powerstones?”
Katya paused, thoughtful. “I am not sure that the other tribes would part with them willingly. The Myaamia seem to be in an area where the chaotic magic is not as harsh as other places and though they retrieved it from its hiding spot, I’m not sure they would actually part with it in order for them all to be used either. It’s possible that the essences as used originally would work, but given the extra power the spell absorbed from the blood-magic, I wouldn’t bet on it. I would think that only the actual stones together would be powerful enough to do what it would need to. I could have succeeded in stealing the powerstone of the Dena’ina had I thought there was a need, I probably could get them all for you this way if you’d like.”
“No,” Layna assured her quickly, “not yet anyway. I don’t want to rush into anything until we’ve decided that it is the only route. But it is a possibility that cannot be ignored either.”
“Most really had no idea what was going on, or that Kali was not being honest with them,” her friend told her, seeming relieved by her answer, “and many of them seem to be willing to listen to a different point of view. The group of people who were responsible for the attacks against you – or at least those who actually understood that they were attacks – seems to be very small. Just like the Order acting behind your back.”
Layna knew Katya didn’t mean this as in insult and simply pondered this a moment. She would have to get the Council and Ieldran to readjust their thinking. It wasn’t the tribe who was the enemy, only a small group of people who had done them wrong.
“Do you think you can discuss the use of the powerstone with whoever is now in charge of the Myaamia who is likely to be on our side?” Gryffon asked, “I hate to ask you to do more, but...it would be very helpful if you could also ask the other tribes…”
“Absolutely,” she nodded, “I’ll begin right away.”
*
Hunter strode into the building, giving Lorcan a sideways glance where he sat next to the bed Katya was resting on. Though she had been healed very well from the tribe healers, she knew that getting rest while she could would be important. It seemed as though fate had yet another quest for her to go on.
She watched Hunter’s graceful movements with admiration. His lithe form rippled with well-defined muscle. He gripped the back of the chair before the table, and picked it up with ease to swivel it around. He sat in it backwards, setting the rolled parchment in his hand on the table and unfurling it.
“Convinced one of the Elders to part with a map of the tribes’ locations,” he told them, still eyeing Lorcan out of the corner of his eye. Though Katya had insisted that Lorcan would never have intentionally hurt her and was only driven by the pain of the loss of his parents, the older man still held a dislike for him. If she didn’t know better, she might think he was actually jealous…
Katya sat up. “Where’s the nearest one?” she inquired.
Hunter paused a moment, squinting at the map, then he raised a hand and pointed to an area slightly north and west of their present location. “Looks like here,” he answered, “though the terrain looks a little rough, so even if the distance is less, it could really be more time. Hard to tell.”
“Which tribe is it?”
“The Kanza. The Dena’ina leader implied that we may not receive a very warm welcome there, however, so it may be better to start somewhere else.”
“Where else are they?”
“Here,” he pointed to the far west, along the coast. “The Dakelh. And here,” he pointed again, his finger moving over the area to the north and east she knew to house the Dena’ina, which he confirmed. “The Dena’ina.” And finally, he drew it down the map and stopped, tapping his finger on the parchment a few times before withdrawing it. “The Gwich’in.”
Katya pondered the choices. No matter what it would be a bit of a journey. “Do you know of a plant called chokeroot?” she asked.
Hunter looked surprised. “I do, why?”
“Layna and Gryffon asked for it, they said that it will help to slow the spread of the disease. The Knights have been sending some for that girl’s sister, but now that they know the Bricrui is really what the curse is, they are looking for more. What areas is it most likely to be found in?”
Hunter rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I’ve only ever seen it in the middle of the Plains, growing around groups of rocky areas.” He examined the map. “The coast is probably too wet for it, and the area around the Gwich’in looks to be mostly forest. I would guess that the Kanza is the most similar to the Plains terrain and therefore would be the most likely to have it.”
“Then let’s start there,” Katya said decisively.
The Elder who had become the new leader since Kali’s absence, Grayson, entered the hut. Katya, Hunter, and Lorcan looked up at him expectantly.
“We have decided to allow you to take the stone,” he told her seriously, handing the stone to her once more. “The wrongs we have committed against you need to be righted, and as we are no longer capable of doing so, we must provide you with the means to do it yourselves. The taming of the chaotic magic spells you have shown us will help to keep the area cleansed, as the stone previously did for us, so there is no reason not to entrust it to you. After all, you proved yourself worthy by carrying around the Bloodstone without being tainted by its aura.”
Katya’s hackles raised. Though she knew that Nathair himself had been tainted by the darkness of Nuko inside the stone, she now thought of it as the remnants of Nathair himself, and did not like him being referred to as evil. She bit her tongue. “Thank you,” she said instead, reaching out and taking the stone from his outstretched hand. “Hopefully it will be able to help us and we can return it to you soon.”
Once it had been decided where they would begin their journey and that the Myaamia would indeed give them their stone, it was not long before they were on their way. The Dena’ina chose to travel with them once again, adding to their entourage a strange cart that four of them hauled along. Katya wondered where the thing had come from, but supposed that it could have been following along behind them on the journey to the Myaamia and then hidden in the woods. The Dena’ina mysteriously refused to give her an answer as to what it contained.
Several of the Myaamia chose to accompany them, to Katya’s surprise, as well as Slade. She kept her distance from the latter, glad that he had come around to realize his erred thinking, but still not ready to forgive him for the emotional toil he’d caused her. She also wasn’t fond of the tension that suddenly filled the air between him and Hunter whenever he was near.
A fly buzzed around Katya’s head and she swatted at it irritably. They had come to the edge of the Kanza lands and now stood in front of their leader. She had explained their position, backed up by both the representatives of the Myaamia and the Dena’ina, and was showing him the stone which the Myaamia had relinquished to her.
The Kanza leader’s eyes widened as he saw what she held before her. His gaze flickered to the Dena’ina leader and Katya thought she saw the other man nod slightly, but she couldn’t be sure.
“We have already been given the Myaamia stone once the majority of their people realized what had been done in the name of the tribes. We can show you how to cleanse the area so that the stone is no longer necessary to keep the chaos at bay.”
The man looked considerably surprised by this information, and impressed, though Katya could tell he was trying to suppress this feeling. “Why would we give you our stone to reverse the spell. What is it to us?”
&nbs
p; “Not only is the act committed against them unspeakable, but the two countries of the Lost Lands are currently in negotiations to unite, and these combined allies would make a formidable foe, even after having a large portion of their population wiped out.”
“Are you threatening us?” the Kanza leader asked, raising an eyebrow, though not looking overly concerned by this possibility.
“Only an observation,” Katya clarified, “Gelendan in particular has had a lot to be angry at in recent years. They may welcome someone to direct this anger at.”
“Indeed,” the man said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin as though stroking an imaginary beard. “We cannot, however, just hand over the stone to you. I’m sorry.”
“Surely there must be some way she can prove she is worthy of the responsibility?” the Dena’ina leader suggested.
The Kanza leader looked sourly at him. “It is not a question of responsibility. It is simply impossible. The stone not only controls the chaos in this region so that we are able to survive the harsh magic, but it also counteracts the atrocities done to us during the Dark King’s rule.”
“What do you mean?”
He took a deep breath, narrowing his eyes slightly, obviously not happy at having to explain himself to an outsider. “Many of those mages who had been,” he paused, pursing his lips, “experimented on by the Dark King’s regime decided to follow our founder here. Understandably, many were not comfortable in the company of those who had not also been horribly deformed. Though over the years we have been able to unravel these changes from our blood, we cannot undo all the damage. Every one of us here is still affected by his atrocities even today.”
Katya looked around, confused. No one she could see looked horribly disfigured. In fact, they were all fairly attractive, with their sun-kissed skin and dark features. “You all look fine to me,” she stated, beginning to feel as though she was just being given the run-around.
The Kanza leader smiled. “That is because of the stone. If it was to be taken from its resting place, the enchantments that our ancestors placed upon it would break, and we would revert to our natural unnatural states.”
Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) Page 6
