“You go now, and I’ll meet you at the Healing Spring. It’s a wonderful place,” he said reassuringly. “Take her there now, imps, and then be ready to come back for me.”
“Farewell for a little while, friend Silas,” Stillwater spoke in the darkness, and then suddenly, Riesta’s hand was gone from his. He was left alone in the darkness below L’Anvien’s Ivaric fastness.
“Now, my lord Krusima, is the time. Please lend me your support once more so that we may put an end to this terrible place, using your powers,” Silas spoke the quick prayer. He stepped out into what he hoped was the middle of the tunnel and hopped a few steps backwards to place himself further under the temple.
“You are prepared?” Krusima answered immediately. “This is a place of strong evil; it will require the exercise of great strength to destroy it,” the god cautioned.
“I am ready, and the imps are ready to carry me to safety,” Silas spoke with more assurance than he felt.
“So be it. Let the powers flow forth,” the god enjoined. “Begin your mission.”
Silas stretched his arms out to either side, as he felt the energy of Krusima flow through him. It was a staggering feeling of swagger and capacity and aggressive achievement. He felt that he could do anything.
His hands did not touch the walls on either side, but he willed them to stretch further, until his fingers were somehow in contact with the bedrock stone that composed the walls of the tunnel. He let Krusima’s energy enter the walls, pressing them further apart, while his own arms magically adjusted to continue to keep pressing.
And he channeled the divine power to produce heat and movement within the stone. He remembered how intoxicating it had felt when Kai’s power had been available and he had seized the energy and used it to reshape the storm that became his hammer, his weapon that had wiped out an entire fleet.
He was more careful now, trying to use the power of a god more judiciously, so that he would not harm himself as much as he had in that destruction of the fleet. But he wanted to use the power of Krusima as destructively as possible nonetheless, creating a fine line that he hoped he would not blunder across.
He felt the tunnel grow warmer and warmer, causing his body to sweat, and the stones to begin to glow, while tremors became rumbles, became constant shaking. It was a signal that he needed to move.
Silas began to step forward slowly, continuously channeling Krusima’s energy and infusing it into the bedrock below the temple, causing voids to form and heat to rise and quakes to shake the building overhead, increasing the size of the space he attacked while he moved forward.
“You need to project structural support backwards,” Krusima advised him. “Don’t let the collapsing begin until a great portion can all happen at once.”
Silas realized the usefulness of the suggestion, and he redirected a portion of the energy backwards, creating an artificial set of beams that held the roof of the tunnel up. He reached out and found more of Krusima’s energy, then seized it and used it to replace what he had just diverted away from his mission of destruction.
He felt the weight of the temple above him. It was resting increasingly perilously on a foundation of bedrock that was being hollowed out. When he removed the supporting energy, the whole temple would shift and drop and move wildly, then crash down upon itself.
Silas imagined he heard shouts from the land above, from the people still on the surface of the earth, who could fell the ground shaking and the waves of heat rising. There might be fires beginning to burn, he suspected, from all the heat that Krusima’s energy was liberating among the stones.
He hadn’t counted steps, he realized; and with his single good leg, and his subsequent awkward hops instead of steps, he wasn’t sure of the length of each hop. He didn’t know how far he’d traveled as he’d spread the seeds of destruction. He felt a sudden weariness, as the stress of conducting so much energy began to fray his nervous system and his soul. He needed to end the exercise and release the power, while calling the imps to come extract him from the tunnel.
But he wasn’t sure he’d gone far enough to wreak enough damage to maximize the destruction of the temple. He had to make sure that the temple of L’Anvien would never again be useable by the evil demi-god. He needed to keep going, to keep adding to the destruction above.
His shoulders stooped with the rapidly growing stress of his mission, and then, at some point later, he came to realize that he was nearly unconscious as he moved forward. He was on his knees, no longer walking, but still progressing away from his starting point.
There was no point in trying to go further. He would release the straining supports behind him and let the collapse of the tunnel begin, a collapse that would produce a spectacular and destructive result on the surface of the ground not far above. And he would call the imps to take him away.
“Stillwater, Odare, Stillwater, Odare!” he called. He felt the support behind him starting to collapse on its own. It wasn’t waiting for his permission, but it was inevitably surrendering to the vast pressure that lay upon it.
Silas heard the rumbling sounds of ruin behind him, as the further reaches of the tunnel fell in. The noise was overwhelming, and a gust of dust and sand and hot air flew at him, and then past him. A nearer section of the tunnel collapsed a moment later, and then the next closest collapsed, as a chain-reaction led to the result that Silas had plotted.
“Silas friend,” an imp’s voice called, then coughed in the terrible air.
“Here,” Silas managed to croak out the word. Another gust of air blew past his position as a close section of the tunnel collapsed, and he heard an imp grunt in pain as it was knocked against the wall of the tunnel.
Suddenly soft bodies pressed against him. He felt his energy and his connection to Krusima give way, and he passed out.
Chapter 32
Silas awoke in his bedroom in the palace at Amenozume, a fresh white sheet resting atop him. It was morning, he could tell, because sunlight was streaming in at nearly a horizontal angle through the window.
Forna sat in a chair, her chin on her chest, slumbering lightly.
He lazily rubbed the sleep crust from his eyes, and swung his feet over the side of the bed, then stood up.
“Wait!” he exclaimed sharply as he felt the cool surface of the stone floor. Forna’s head rose as her eyes opened and stared ahead momentarily without focus.
“Silas! You’re awake!” she smiled and stood up.
Silas stared down at the two feet on the floor. His two feet. The missing left foot had fully regrown into place. His mind was full of confusion over the feet, Forna’s presence, and then suddenly his recollection of the tunnel under the temple, the last thing he remembered.
“I know, I know, you want to hear everything,” Forna said placatingly as she reached his side. “Sit back down and I’ll tell you everything I’ve heard.”
“I’m not going to sit down until I relieve myself,” he said urgently, nodding towards the bathroom door in his suite.
Two minutes later he was back in the luxurious bed, lying among his pillows, as Forna began to briefly recount the story of his journey to the palace suite.
“Real quick, because I’ll have to alert the staff that you’re awake; Lumene demands to know the second that you awaken,” his cousin explained.
“Is she mad at me?” the question blurted out of Silas. He had stumbled into the mission of destroying the temple in Ivaric without intending to. He had traveled away from the palace after a spat with Lumene and ended up undertaking the task of destroying the L’Anvien temple. It had been a weighty challenge. Lumene might very well be upset with him for leaving her palace without telling her, to do something that he shouldn’t have done so impulsively.
“She hasn’t told me if she is,” Forna answered easily. “She’s been worried at your injury, and relieved by your return, from what I’ve seen.” Forna didn’t presume to call the royal princess of Amenozume a close friend, but through her two exten
ded residences in the palace the Tracker felt she could read the princess’s emotions relatively well. The princess was emotional, somewhat volatile, though she typically managed to suppress that aspect of her personality in public appearances.
But she clearly was in love with Silas, Forna knew.
“How long was it this time?” he asked, wondering about the restoration of his foot.
“Only three weeks, and one of them was here. All things considered, a real improvement, especially because Riesta had sent word within a day or so to tell us where you were and what you did,” Forna replied.
“That princess can swear better that a sailor. I don’t know where she learned some of those words,” Forna added, making Silas look up from his feet. “You know, when she first heard what you did.”
“But anyway,” she hastily added, “sit down and I’ll tell you how it all happened.
“I was in Avaleen with Carlton and so many others, helping him keep the peace. I’d Tracked down a half dozen of the leading criminals who were trying to extort the citizens during all the turmoil,” she began. “They didn’t have any idea that there’d be a Tracker available to take on the ordinary criminal cases like that, but I didn’t have anything else to do, so I’d Track them for the constabulary. I got three in one day!” she said proudly.
“There came an afternoon when the sun seemed to grow especially bright for a few minutes, and the world just felt like a better place; everyone remarked upon it, and we didn’t know why it was. Two days later, Prima’s caravan came rolling into the city. Their Speaker reported that she had received messages about Ivaric, and you, and Riesta,” Forna reported.
“She sent a message to the palace here in Amenozume, to inform Lumene. She apparently knew from another Speaker – she never did say who – who had heard from imps! And the imps reported that you and Riesta were at the magic spring where you could be healed, just like last time. I learned a lot more this time than the first time you did something like this,” she spoke as an aside.
“The Speaker in Avaleen – who I don’t trust – Jimes is stepping in to help unofficially – Carlton will need to get a better permanent one when he has time – got a message from the Speaker in Amenozume, ordering Gwen and I to take the first fast ship available and come back to Amenozume, so we did.
“Carlton had the city of Avaleen well in hand by then,” she explained. “So we took a fast clipper, and we were here in three days. It made Gwen very happy to be back with Lumene, and I think the Princess was happy to have her bodyguard back to maybe keep her in check a little bit.
“And two days after that, you and Riesta were here all of the sudden. Lumene grilled Riesta very closely, in the nicest way and learned quite a bit about you showing up at the caravan and whisking her away on a whim to go destroy the most dangerous place known on the continent. And then she talked about having to heal you from all the burns and cuts. And she casually name-dropped a goddess stopping by to explain that you were suffering from using so much of Krusima’s energy,” Forna grinned.
“But then Riesta was anxious to get back to her lover from the caravan, so imps showed up and whisked her away, and I was assigned to sit here and watch over you until you awoke, which you’ve just done,” Forna summed up.
“So now, if you’re ready, I’ll inform the guards to inform the Princess,” she glided over and hugged him as she spoke. After a long, warm and rewarding embrace, she left him and went into the hall. Silas walked over to the window, delighted to be walking on two feet once again. The view out the window was the same as it had always been, a partial view of a garden, and a partial view of the roofline for another portion of the palace. The sun was shining, and the air was slightly misty, perhaps the salty air of the harbor being blown inland by a sea breeze, he speculated.
There was a sound at the door, and he turned to see Forna re-entering the room.
“She’s in a hearing. She’ll be up in a little while,” his cousin reported. “And there’ll be a tray of food sooner than that. You ought to put some clothes on,” she suggested.
Silas blushed. He would have never been so comfortable with casual stages of undress back in his life growing up in Brigamme, but all the time he had spent with the imps and sprites, especially at the Healing Spring, had made him less concerned. He would be embarrassed someday if he didn’t remember to consider donning his clothing more.
While he was in the closet getting clothes, the breakfast food arrived. To his disappointment, the tray held a selection of bland and unappetizing items.
“The kitchen felt that since you hadn’t eaten for many days, you should start off with something simple and easy to digest,” Forna spoke when she saw the look of dissatisfaction on his face.
Silas made a sound of disgust, then picked up a spoon in resignation and began eating the bowl of porridge that sat steaming on his tray.
“Will it help if I put these dried fruits in it?” Forna tried to hide her grin as she asked.
“Will it help if I order a platter of ham and bacon?” the Princess’s voice asked from the doorway, where she had arrived unheard.
“Why be a member of the royal family if you can’t order bacon?” Silas immediately grinned with pleasure as he dropped his spoon and sprang to his feet, then paced quickly over to Lumene. The two of them embraced in a tight hug, as Gwen hung back and watched both of them.
“Good to see you Gwen,” Silas mouthed the words silently over Lumene’s shoulder. The bodyguard responded by tipping her fingers in a salute.
“It’s good to see you,” Silas told Lumene at length, holding her at arm’s length as they broke their affectionate clinch.
“It’s good to see you awake. I’ve been seeing you for several days. You’re very adept at sleeping, I’ve learned,” Lumene told him with a warm smile.
“Oh Silas, you are going to make me age at ten times the normal rate if you keep going out to do these amazing, heroic, foolish things,” she added.
“May we have some privacy?” she looked to Forna and Gwen.
“Can we trust your safety to him?” Gwen asked with a serious face, then grinned, before she and Forna quietly stepped out of the room.
“Silas,” Lumene began.
“I know,” he cut her off. “I shouldn’t have gone and just plunged into the attack at Ivaric without thinking, without telling you. It was thoughtless of me,” he apologized.
“Thank you,” Lumene replied gravely. “Now Silas, I have an idea. I spoke with my mother about my wish to marry you, but she agrees that I cannot just become betrothed or married before you leave the island on a journey of unknown length.
“But she did recommend that we could give you honors and a title, to raise you above a commoner’s status now. It would prepare the court to know how much I value you and how much you mean to me,” Lumene explained.
“That would make the court accept me better?” Silas asked skeptically.
“Actually, it would. If you have a title, you’re a part of the court. They’d be a little stand-offish, perhaps, but they’d know that you have just as much right to be in the court as anyone else. And if I hint at an attachment while you’re gone on your next adventure, they won’t do more than grumble for a while,” Lumene said thoughtfully.
“And I have so many possible titles to propose to mother! You could be simply the Abomination, or Lord Abomination, or the Terrible Abomination!” Lumene chuckled as she made her suggestions.
Silas responded by kissing her with passion, silencing them both for several long minutes.
“Is everything okay in there?” Gwen’s voice intruded through the door.
“When do you want to make the title official?” Silas asked.
“In a fortnight. There will be a full moon that night. It will be romantic,” Lumene explained. “The dance after the title ceremony will be romantic, I mean,” she clarified.
Silas was silent for a moment. He needed to truly consider the beginning of his journey, he realized.
Would a wait of a fortnight be too long, he asked himself?
“That will be fine,” he spoke out loud as he decided. “A fortnight will give us time together,” he squeezed Lumene’s shoulders in a hug.
“I assume everything is okay in there,” Gwen’s voice sounded through the door again, an annoyed tone clearly present.
“Come in, come in; we’re just talking,” Lumene invited, sliding a few inches across the bed to put space between herself and Silas.
“Will you come to dinner with mother and I tomorrow night?” Lumene asked Silas. “She’s anxious to meet you. I can’t believe the two of you haven’t ever been introduced!”
“It would help if the boy would settle down in one place, instead of flitting around all the time,” Gwen offered her unsolicited opinion.
“Oh Gwen, you said just the other day that he’s the greatest fighter you’ve ever seen,” Lumene embarrassed her bodyguard by revealing.
“I should go back to court,” the princess sighed and stood up. “What will you do today?” she asked Silas.
He shrugged. “I might go to the armory,” he suggested. “Or I might visit with the imps,” he suggested it in a too casual tone.
“What do you have in mind?” Lumene immediately asked in a sharp tone. “Where are you and your companions in crime going to go? Do you plan to start your adventure ahead of schedule?”
“no, no, no, not at all,” Silas answered. “No battles or fights. Just a trip back to the elven lands.
“Maybe a visit with Kestrel,” he murmured nonchalantly.
“Who is he? An elf? You’ve mentioned him before, haven’t you?” Lumene’s eyes were piercing Silas, digging into his soul as she examined him for any sign of deception.
“I just plan to talk to him,” Silas answered. “I don’t expect we’ll start any fighting right away; not in the next two weeks, certainly.”
“Majesty, perhaps you should go to put in an appearance at your appointment,” Gwen pointed out.
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