A Guardian of Shadows (Revenant Wyrd Book 4)

by Travis Simmons

  “How far do you think it is?” Deven asked Cianna, and his voice echoed, as if they were the only three people in a barren room instead of surrounded by miles of seemingly endless marsh.

  “It should only be a couple hours of walking,” Cianna told him.

  “Will we be out of here by nighttime?” Devenstar asked.

  Cianna looked up at the sky, at the filtered sun more than halfway through the sky.

  “I hope so,” she told them.

  “Do you think the well is clean yet?” Pi asked them.

  Cianna shrugged. “How would you tell?”

  Pi held up her hands and conjured a small ball there, like a glowing sun, casting eerie, sage-green light across her palms. She tossed her hand up and the orb took to hovering around her head, floating and bobbing about like it really was a sun, orbiting Pi’s head.

  “Didn’t feel weird,” she told them, glancing back to make sure Flora wasn’t watching. She would have thrown a fit.

  “Why, what are you thinking? Cianna asked.

  “Here.” Pi’s hands started glowing green again, and she touched them to each of her feet, then to Cianna’s, and lastly to Devenstar’s. “This should make traveling a bit faster.”

  “It will cut the time in half, if the well is purified. If not, who knows — one step might shoot us out into space.”

  “If that’s the case, then finding Clara should go much faster,” Deven said.

  Pi was trying to joke, but it really did nothing to ease Cianna’s nerves. As if bringing them back to the present, a curious kelpie slammed into the edge of Cianna’s orb, and sparks flew, showering those inside with necrotic energy.

  “Ew, that feels gross,” Pi said, then she thought better of it. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said your wyrd feels gross.”

  “No worries,” Cianna told her. “The first time I touched my power I threw up. It isn’t a pleasant feeling. Like you are touching a point that no person should, like something beyond the most putrid grave.”

  Pi nodded.

  Deven took a tentative step, and it was less like he was jumping and more like the foot he pushed off with pushed him further than it should have, almost as though he was sprinting instead of stepping.

  “Guess it works,” Pi said, and they started walking, each step like a leap.

  “This is very strange,” Cianna said.

  “Think of it less like you are stepping and more like the ground is bending, bunching up kind of, allowing you to cross more than just a little space.” Pi told her.

  “Yeah, that doesn’t help.” Cianna felt wobbly at first, but as she got used to it she was able to keep better pace with the other two. “So is this something all sorcerers can do?”

  “Yes, but not as well as I can; I have a better knack for working with time and space I guess.” Pi told her, and Cianna figured she would never fully understand the intricacies of sorcery.

  “Why is your wyrd green like that if the well isn’t corrupt?” Cianna wondered aloud.

  “Before you become a full sorcerer, before your trials, your wyrd won’t have a specific color. After you’re fully merged with your wyrd, then it shows through. It’s not really the color of your wyrd — more the color of your energy.”

  “There’s a difference?” Cianna was only confusing herself more.

  “Oh yes!” Devenstar said. “Your energy is almost like your aura, or your spirit. Your wyrd isn’t the same thing.”

  “Okay,” Cianna held up her hands. “No lectures, I think anything more than that will confuse me.”

  Devenstar gave a half-hearted chuckle. Now that they were actually doing something to find Clara, Pi and Deven seemed in better spirits. They were heartened that Cianna had told them she couldn’t feel Clara among the dead, and that bothered Cianna, because if Clara really was dead, what would happen? Would they blame her? She worried they wouldn’t take it well.

  But only about an hour after entering the barrier they came across the dead guard that had gone over with Clara.

  “It was right here,” Pi said, falling to her knees in a squelch of marshy earth. “This is where she landed.” Her hands traced a mark on the ground that was indented in roughly the size and shape of a person.

  “Then where is she?” Deven asked, looking around. Cianna’s eyes scanned the ground, and when she moved, the kelpies moved away. Only once had they tried to attack; the sparks from that first attack seemed to scare them in a way Cianna didn’t understand, but was grateful for.

  “Look, footprints,” Cianna said, pointing off in the distance. The footprints went under the bridge and began tracing their way toward the Realm of Fire, the same way they had gone.

  “Follow them,” Pi said, racing ahead of Cianna.

  “Slow down; my circle can’t keep you safe if you run out of it.”

  Reluctantly Pi slowed down.

  “Do you think she could make it through all of the kelpies?” Devenstar asked.

  “I have a feeling if she survived a fall like that, then she is already a sorcerer,” Cianna said. She honestly didn’t think that she would have to spell it out for him like that. “After that, the only thing that can kill her is beheading, right?”

  Devenstar nodded.

  They followed the footprints a ways until they could barely make out a form slumped to the ground amid the fog and marsh. Kelpies gathered around Clara, like they were just waiting for her to die so they could feast.

  “There!” Pi said, and made to dash forward, but a restraining grasp from Cianna stopped her, as the confines of the necrotic orb stretched.

  Clara’s blonde hair covered her face, and was caked with mud. Though she didn’t appear to be breathing, her skin was flushed, indicating she still lived. Cianna scanned her thin form, looking for any indication that she might have broken bones, but she couldn’t see anything.

  “Can you carry her?” Cianna asked Devenstar.

  Deven nodded and knelt to pick his sister up. He shifted her easily over his shoulder.

  “Alright, let’s get out of here.” Cianna told him, watching the kelpies as her orb pushed them farther away from Clara the closer the group got to the prostrate girl. But there was something Cianna feared — if they took Clara, how would the kelpies react?

  She didn’t have long to wonder, for the kelpies reared back at seeing their meal being taken away. One after another they slammed into the protective circle keeping them from Cianna and her group. Sparks flew, but this time they didn’t seem to hinder or scare the kelpies.

  While they were attacking singly Cianna was able to keep them at bay, but she wasn’t sure what would happen if they all attacked at once.

  “We’d better hurry,” she told them. They started running, while she cast out tendrils of her necromancy, trying to calm the emboldened kelpies. It didn’t help. They knew what she was trying to do, and if anything it made them angrier.

  Cianna feared that soon her necromancy wouldn't be enough to protect them. All she had to do was keep them away from the group until they were able to clear the barrier.

  “Only a little further,” Pi said, as if sensing Cianna's thoughts. The ground jumped beneath their feet as they flew across the marsh, aided by Pi's wyrding. Cianna hoped they could outpace the kelpies, but that wasn’t happening.

  At first Cianna thought the kelpies were retreating, but when she sent out a seeking probe of necromancy she felt their will. They were reevaluating the situation and what needed to happen to get to their prey, Clara.

  The barrier was in sight when the kelpies concentrated their attack. Several slammed into the circle at once, knocking Cianna to her knees. Pi and Deven barely had enough warning to stop before they slid out of the protective embrace of her necromancy. The two of them teetered there on the edge of the circle, hungry kelpies skimming through the air mere inches in front of them, with livid switches of their fish fins.

  Cianna staggered to her feet and started running again. She looked behind her and saw all of
the kelpies gathering, like a school of fish, pointing at her in an arrow formation, ready to attack.

  “Pi!” It was all Cianna had to say. The sorceress turned around, channeled her wyrd down her arms, and launched a sage-green fireball at the tip of the kelpie formation. The fireball seemed to scare them, but did little to distract them. Cianna wasn't sure what she was hoping for; maybe some kind of destruction?

  Deven shifted his sister in his grip, freeing his dominant hand by slinging her over his other shoulder. He held his free hand to his mouth, and there wyrd began to gather in the form of a small ball, gold in color. As they ran he yelled into it. “Open the barrier.” As soon as he said it, he threw the orb toward Flora.

  The orb flew true, finding its target. Cianna could barely make out Flora through the rippling aegis of the border, grabbing the orb, holding it to her ear, and then looking to find them. Once she spotted them she ran in the direction they were headed.

  “They’re coming!” Pi yelled. The sound of thunder reverberated in the circle, and the space lit with green light as the diminutive sorceress launched a volley of lightning behind them. Pi was trying all she could to hold them off.

  Deven yelped and stopped. In pain, he dropped Clara, but the girl didn’t fall to the ground — instead she hovered. The air around Clara stirred, though Cianna couldn’t feel any wind. It lifted Clara's hair languidly, shifted her blue tunic and brown breeches, and even caused her to levitate. She hung in the air, facing the attacking kelpies, and slowly her eyes opened, now white and alive with wyrd.

  The kelpies flew true, smashing into the circle. Cianna fell onto her backside as the necromancy used to create the protective barrier snapped and traveled back down the link directly into her. She saw stars.

  The kelpies came. Clara held up a hand, and a vertical beam of yellow light appeared, stretching from ground to sky. It was like a knife, slicing through the ranks of the kelpies. Where they came in contact with her yellow energy, the kelpies screamed and turned to glittering dust, raining down around the group. Dead.

  Cianna knew they were dead because she could feel it. Where the shimmering ectoplasm of their spirit selves soaked into the ground, she could feel no stir of life.

  The kelpies stopped after half of their group had been lost to Clara’s casting. They studied the girl, but didn’t come any closer. Hissing, the half-horse, half-fish creatures swam off.

  The preternatural wind stopped, and Clara collapsed.

  “What was that?” Cianna asked.

  “She’s in her trials now,” Pi told her. “Trial of Air.” Deven grabbed his sister and dashed through the barrier opening Flora had just created.

  Cianna and Pi followed.

  “But how is that possible?” Cianna asked. “If she hadn’t been in her trials before she fell, wouldn’t she have died?”

  “Set her down,” Flora commanded, quickly sealing the barrier behind them. As she worked, she cast concerned looks over her shoulder at the comatose sorceress. When the barrier sealed with an audible noise like ice freezing rapidly, Flora turned her full attention to the group. “Try not to touch her; it is dangerous when a sorcerer is in their trials.”

  “Not impossible, but strange,” Pi answered Cianna, ignoring the exchange between Devenstar and their teacher.

  “Not strange at all. Wyrded beings have an unusual effect on the wyrd of other creatures,” Flora said. “We all saw the kelpies travel through Clara that night she fell over the side of the bridge. It’s my belief that they might have brought her change on faster than was intended. I’m sure she wasn’t far off from the change naturally, but they certainly helped it along.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” Devenstar folded his lanky form up beside his sister, staring at their teacher.

  “She is in her trials. She is immortal. Clara should be fine.” Flora said.

  “What did she do back there?” Cianna asked. It appeared she was the only one flummoxed by what Clara had done with the kelpies.

  “Just a protection that extends to any sorcerer in their trials,” Flora waved a hand at Cianna as if to silence her. “Now hush, I’m scanning her to make sure she’s okay.”

  She leveled a look at Clara, and her eyes grew unfocused, distant, as if she were seeing things none of them could. A few minutes later Flora came back to herself. “She will be fine,” she told them.

  Pi slumped to the ground, relief etched on her face. She looked up at Cianna.

  “Thank you,” Pi told her.

  “No need to thank me. I’m sorry I acted like an ass.”

  Pi shook her head. “You have a task at hand. An important one. It’s natural to be consumed with that. I think your pilgrimage isn’t so different from our trials after all.”

  Cianna thought of the nightmares, the gruesome images she saw in her sleep. The way the dead would come to her, harassing her when she wasn't moving fast enough for them. She thought of the power pulling her on. She looked down at Clara, who appeared asleep, but was deep in the grip of something Cianna couldn’t understand.

  Cianna hoped that nightmares and wythes were the worst of what she would have to face. She looked toward the Barrier Mountains on the distant side of the Realm of Fire and shook her head. Who knew what she would find when she entered the Necromancers’ Mosque?

  “I hope you’re right.”

  The hecklin gathered at the fence of the Haunted Graveyard, not bothering to try to enter the cemetery. Still they barked, still they howled. It was different seeing them in their natural habitat. When they were in the Realm of Earth, Angelica hadn't been able to see them, since their white fur blended with the surrounding fog. Here, in the total darkness only split by the occasional pool of sunflower light, their fur nearly glowed with power. A chaotic power.

  Their inaction put Angelica on edge.

  “Should we be bothered that the chaotic creatures are afraid of this place?” she wondered aloud.

  “Do you think this is like the Mirror of the Moon?” Jovian asked, looking around at the vine-covered tombstones, crumbling in disrepair. It was evident by the long clumps of grass and the accumulation of sunflowers further in that no one took care of this graveyard. In fact, there were so many sunflowers growing on a building at the center of the Haunted Graveyard that it radiated like the sun had come to rest there.

  “What do you mean?” Joya asked, gazing at the brightness in the middle of the graveyard.

  “Well, the Mirror of the Moon is the heart of the Sacred Forest; what if the Haunted Graveyard is the heart of the Haunted Forest?” Jovian asked.

  “Hmm, I hadn’t really thought about it,” Joya told him. “I want to know what’s in that building.” Joya's feet carried her closer to the center.

  Uthia grabbed her, her black and white bark almost glowing in the darkness of the graveyard. She pulled Joya away from her current path, and closer to the group.

  “No you don’t, sorceress.” Uthia warned her. Overhead a sizzle of lightning flitted between the racing clouds.

  “What's in it?” She turned to the dryad.

  Uthia didn’t break her gaze from the building. She started shoving dirt into knotholes on her legs, holes that Angelica didn’t remember seeing before. Could it be that Uthia could alter her shape to suit her purposes? It was unnatural. Angelica shivered, trying to envision a person doing that, and couldn’t help seeing bloody pockets filled with dirt and worms.

  “There is a protector in this graveyard. A powerful dalua.” The dryad told them all.

  “And that's what lives in the building?” Joya said, turning back to the glowing structure.

  “No, she rests on the altar just before it.”

  “The statue?” Angelica asked.

  Uthia nodded. “If you get too close, she will come alive.”

  “So a gargoyle,” Jovian said.

  Uthia nodded again.

  “Is that why there are so many sunflowers around?” Joya wondered.

  “What do you mean?” Jovian ask
ed his sister.

  “Well, we’ve never seen such a gathering of sunflowers before, have we? It’s almost like it was planted there intentionally.”

  “So?” Angelica asked.

  “Gargoyles only come to life at night. But it is always night-like here, right?” Joya said. “Maybe someone planted them there to keep the gargoyle frozen, make her think it was always daylight.”

  Uthia was nodding. “True as that might be, she still comes to life when someone gets too near. Must have to do with the power bestowed upon her.”

  “What happened here? It looks like it was once a thriving place; why is it abandoned now?” Jovian wondered.

  Uthia shrugged.

  “It has to do with the gargoyle,” Joya said.

  “How do you know?” Angelica asked.

  “I don’t know!” Joya looked confused. “I just do.” That declaration seemed to scare Joya. “She was placed here as a protection when it was the Realm of Spirit. When spirit left the lands and the Shadow Realm came about, she saw everyone as a threat.”

  Joya turned around, looking at the overrun cemetery. Worry at how she knew these things was apparent on her face. Angelica would bet that this knowledge wasn't part of her sorcery. She also didn't think it had anything to do with the psychic powers of the anakim, either.

  “That makes sense,” Jovian agreed.

  “That’s how it is,” Joya said. “She was placed here to keep it safe, and ended up destroying it by not letting anyone in.” Joya turned back to the building behind the gargoyle. “Except one person; the one who planted those sunflowers.”

  Joya turned around, looking to each of the individuals she traveled with, as if she was expecting them to confirm what she had just said. None of them knew, so they didn't say anything.

  “Who planted those sunflowers?” Jovian asked Joya, his interest apparent on his face. He thought she was on to something.

  Joya started to shrug, but then thought about it. It seemed like she was listening to something inside her head. “The Realm Guardian?”

  “That's impossible,” Uthia told them. “The Shadow Realm hasn't had a Realm Guardian for at least ten years now.”