Witch Wraith

by Terry Brooks

  “I need you to do something,” he said to Aphen.

  She shifted her gaze from the space the cat had occupied a moment earlier and back again to him. “What?”

  “I need you to fake an attempt at escaping. A quick couple of steps should do it.”

  “That’s a moor cat, Cymrian! And you can’t even see it!”

  “If it comes for you in response, it will have to reveal itself. Moor cats can only vanish like that when they are still.”

  She hissed at him, the sound born of rage and frustration. But he ignored her. “Can you do it?”

  “It’s you who can’t do it!”

  “Yes or no? We don’t have time to argue.”

  She took a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “Summon your magic. Do what you can to help me.”

  She gave in to the obvious necessity of embracing this madness. This would never work, but she understood they needed to do something. Every second lost was precious, and she had no better plan.

  She broke for the passage opening, two quick steps. Cinla reappeared as if by magic, several yards away from where she had disappeared, springing at Aphen. But Cymrian was quicker. Blades flashing in both hands, he launched himself across the space separating him from Cinla and threw himself atop the cat. The moor cat half turned in response, claws slashing, jaws yawning wide. Cymrian’s blades disappeared into her thick coat, buried to the hilt. Cinla screamed—a terrible sound that ratcheted through Aphen like an explosion. She was summoning the magic already, bringing it into her fingertips, desperate to help, but it seemed to take forever.

  Cymrian had fresh blades in his hands as he lost his grip on the moor cat and rolled under it. There was blood on his clothing, much of it his own, and the moor cat was still tearing at him, teeth now fastened to his shoulder. But Cymrian ignored that. Both blades slammed upward into the moor cat’s throat, plunging through the soft, exposed skin, sliding past the bones of her skull and penetrating her brain. Cinla’s head jerked upward, her killing grip released.

  Aphen’s magic struck out at the big animal, hammering into the moor cat and throwing it away from Cymrian. Cinla was thrown backward and slammed into the cavern wall. The moor cat struggled up, the handles of Cymrian’s knives sticking out of her body and jaws like blunt spikes as she lurched toward them. But the blades that had penetrated her brain had done too much damage. Her strength gone, she slumped in mid-stride and did not move again.

  Cymrian was on his feet instantly, ragged and bleeding, his upper torso shredded. “Elfstones!” he gasped. “Show me the way!”

  Forcing herself to ignore his terrible wounds, Aphen yanked out the Elfstones and summoned their magic. The instant their brilliant light angled down the passageway and up the stairs beyond, the Elven Hunter went racing off. Aphen followed, making certain the Elfstone magic continued to illuminate the path they needed to follow. She did not know how Cymrian managed to find the strength to run as fast as he did; she could not comprehend how he remained upright. By all rights, he should be dead.

  She tightened her jaw at the image her words conjured. Not that. Please, not that.

  She went after him with fresh resolve, knowing he would need her, wanting to be there for him, aware of what he was doing. Aphen had glimpsed that final look on her sister’s face as she was being dragged from the cavern. Arling was not going to stand for what was being done to her. At some point, she was going to fight back. And she would do so before she was aboard Edinja’s Sprint, where she had to know she would be trussed up and rendered helpless.

  Cymrian was already out of sight ahead of her. Aphen was slowed by the effort it took to focus the magic of the Elfstones so that it lit a path through the blackness ahead of her. Without the magic to guide them, relying instead on torches and memory, it would take too long to catch up to Edinja and Arling.

  What they would do when they actually found them again was another matter. But apparently Cymrian had already made up his mind.

  She found the long flight of stairs and ascended them in frantic leaps and bounds until she reached the maze of tunnels. Bright splashes of Cymrian’s blood dampened the rock surface beneath her feet as she ran. Her breathing was quick and labored, but she refused to slacken her pace. Every so often, she caught sight of the Elven Hunter ahead of her when the passageways straightened enough to reveal his progress. Each time he was a little farther away. She couldn’t believe he could keep this up. The moor cat had torn him open front and back, and he was bleeding heavily. It didn’t seem to matter. He wasn’t slowing down.

  He would reach Arling first, Aphen realized. He would have to be the one to save her.

  Faster, she urged herself silently. Or maybe she was urging him. Run faster!

  When Arling was forced out of Safehold’s dark entrance and back into the deeper blackness of the tunnels, she was already preparing to break free. She couldn’t expect help from Aphen and Cymrian—not realistically—so she would have to provide the help she needed herself. It was scary to think of trying to do much of anything with a knife at her throat and her hair clutched in Edinja’s fist, but there was no other choice if she wanted to avoid being hauled off to Arborlon and sacrificed not for the good of the Elves and the other Races, but to serve Edinja’s twisted purposes.

  The distinction was clear in her mind. The end result might be the same, but the means and the intent were decidedly different. She didn’t want for any of what was foreordained to transpire without Aphenglow beside her. She would need her sister’s strength, and she was determined she would have it. What she would do when she reached Arborlon, she would do only on her own terms.

  Edinja had gotten her the largest part of the way back to the opening into the Hollows when she gave a terrible scream—a sound that lay somewhere between rage and despair. For an instant she relaxed her grip on Arling, dropping to her knees as if stricken. Arling, seeing her chance, twisted free and fled through the tunnels toward freedom.

  She was halfway across the clearing that separated the entrance to the tunnels beneath Spire’s Reach from the surrounding woods when Edinja caught up to her. A tangling of her legs from an unseen force was her first indication of the other’s presence, a magic spell used to bring her down. She collapsed helplessly, and then the sorceress was on top of her, dragging her back to her feet by her hair.

  “They’ve killed her!” Edinja Orle screamed, the words an earsplitting shriek that reverberated through the mist-shrouded air. “My Cinla!”

  An instant later Cymrian burst through the opening into the caves and came for them. He did so at a dead run, no slowing, no equivocation. Blood was sheeted across the entire front of his tunic, and his white hair was wild and loose about his face. Edinja started to turn when she heard him, but hesitated just a fraction of a second. It was enough. Arling grabbed onto the other’s knife arm, slammed the back of her head against her captor’s exposed face, and wrenched free of the grip on her hair. Edinja screamed, broke the girl’s hold on her arm, and slashed at her. A deep rent opened across Arling’s chest, and blood turned her tunic crimson.

  Then Edinja turned on Cymrian, both hands raised in a warding motion. Whatever magic she had invoked, it threw the Elven Hunter off his feet and sent him tumbling backward. But Arling flung herself on the sorceress once more, ignoring the pain of her wound and the sight of blood soaking through her tunic. She grappled with the witch, trying to pin her arms, to throw her to the ground. But even though Edinja was smaller than Arling, she was unexpectedly strong, and quickly broke her grip.

  By now Cymrian had struggled back to his feet. He threw himself on Edinja, tearing her away from Arling and bearing her to the ground. Arling heard the force of the impact as they collided, saw Edinja’s knife flash into view, and then Cymrian was on top of her with his hands around her throat. She thrashed wildly, trying to break free. But the knife had disappeared, and her hands were empty. Her arms and legs flailed as she tried to throw him off, but he was too strong. She attempted to s
ummon her magic, but her voice was choked off and her hands flapped uselessly. Cymrian kept his grip on her throat and did not loosen it until she went limp and her breathing was stilled.

  But when she was dead, he slumped forward and rolled onto his back, and Arling saw Edinja’s knife buried in his chest.

  Aphen burst into view, saw the blood from Arling’s wound, and rushed first toward her. But Arling, struggling to rise, motioned frantically toward Cymrian, and after a quick glance Aphen changed directions. By the time Arling had torn off the sleeves of her tunic and used the folded cloth to stanch the flow of blood from her knife cut, her sister was already at the Elven Hunter’s side, bending over him. Dragging herself closer, Arling could hear them whispering.

  “Hold on,” her sister was urging. “Let me help you. I can use healing magic. I can mend your wounds. I just need a little time …”

  His hand lifted to take hold of hers. “Just … remove the knife.”

  She hesitated, but then fastened her hand about the handle of the blade and pulled it free.

  “Better. I don’t want … to die with that sticking out of me.”

  His voice was strong in spite of his injuries. There was blood everywhere. Where the knife had been extracted, it bubbled from his chest.

  “Arling?” he asked.

  “Just a superficial wound.” Aphen glanced over, making sure, and Arling quickly nodded in reassurance. Aphen turned back. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”

  “Just stay with me. It won’t … be for very long.”

  She was crying freely. “You should have waited for me!”

  “There wasn’t time. Besides, the moor cat …” He trailed off. “Things were … already decided.”

  Aphen put her hands over her face, ignoring the blood that streaked them.

  “Take Arling … home,” Cymrian said. “Don’t let … anything stop you. Arling is decided. She knows. Don’t … make her doubt herself. Help her … stay strong.”

  Aphen nodded, her mouth a tight line. She took her bloodied hands away from her face and placed them over his.

  “I wish I had more time …”

  “You know I love you,” she interrupted.

  His eyes steadied on hers. “I know.”

  “I should have said it more often. I should have done more for you.”

  “You did enough. Don’t question it. Just remember …”

  He coughed, and blood sprayed from his mouth. Aphen bent down quickly and they whispered hurried words to each other that Arling couldn’t hear. Aphen clutched at him as if to hold him back from what was coming. It wasn’t enough. Seconds later, he sighed and went still.

  When Aphen lifted away from him, she had a look on her face that Arling had never seen before.

  It was a look of utter despair.

  That night, as Aphen lay wrapped in her grief, unable to think or act, Arling asked her sister what she had said to Cymrian. The Elven Hunter’s body lay wrapped in blankets and sheeting at the rear of the vessel’s cockpit. Aphen had refused to leave him, even though he had asked her to, telling her not to waste time but to just go.

  “He never thought of himself,” she said. “Not once.”

  “He didn’t love himself like he loved you.” Arling waited a moment before asking again. “What did you say?”

  Aphen looked down at her blood-streaked hands. She had done a poor job of cleaning them, but she didn’t seem to care. “I told him I loved him enough that one day I would find him again. I would come for him wherever he was and we would be together.” She paused, shaking her head. “Stupid words. Foolish promises. But I meant them.”

  “What did he say?” Arling pressed.

  Her sister began to cry. “He said he would be waiting.”

  Twenty-seven

  Their journey to reach the huge pit that occupied the center of the valley required Redden Ohmsford and his companions to proceed much more slowly than they wanted to. Huge cracks split the floor, some of them hidden by brush and rock until they were right on top of them. In daylight—or as much daylight as there ever was within the Forbidding—it would have been an acceptable risk. But with nightfall coming on and the already weakened light rapidly giving way to treacherous shadows, it became especially dangerous.

  At the same time, none of them wanted to be caught out in the open after darkness where they would be exposed and vulnerable to predators.

  If not for Tesla Dart, the boy and the shape-shifter would have been hopelessly handicapped by their unfamiliarity with the terrain and their inability to cover the distance demanded of them in time. But the Ulk Bog had no trouble finding her way even in the closing dark and kept them moving steadily across the valley floor toward their goal, urging them on with hisses and grunts and anxious movements of her head, all the while warning of unseen dangers and potential pitfalls. She scampered and darted as if possessed, a mirror image of the Chzyk Lada, who by now only appeared in flashes of muted color when coming back to speak with his mistress. The odd procession snaked its way across the blasted earth in short, choppy bursts and with constant shifts of direction, led mostly by the small lizard.

  “It would help if we were Chzyks, too,” Oriantha observed at one point.

  It was almost completely dark when they reached the edge of the pit, the skies overcast with high clouds and low-hanging layers of mist, the air dry and murky within the vast cup of the valley’s walls. On reaching their goal, Tesla brought them to a halt and pulled them close.

  “Now we choose. Go down in dark or wait for light. Sleep until sun or use torch.”

  “Which do you think?” Oriantha asked.

  The Ulk Bog scrunched up her feral face. “Dangerous in dark. Many steps, deep down. Then tunnel and cavern where magic kept. Hard to see with only torch.” She shrugged. “But hard to see with only torch in daylight, too. Not so different. No sun in cavern.”

  “Helpful,” Redden observed.

  “So it doesn’t matter?” Oriantha pressed.

  Tesla Dart thought about it. “Doesn’t.”

  “Then we should go now. The quicker we go down there, the sooner we get back out. Besides, it’s dangerous everywhere in this country.”

  She glanced at Redden, who immediately nodded. He was anxious to know if there really was anything of use down in that pit. Waiting until morning would be maddening. “We should go now,” he agreed.

  So they moved ahead to the lip of the black hole, where they found a series of rough stairs leading down to a rock shelf some fifty feet below them. Beyond, the darkness was so thick and impenetrable there was nothing to be seen.

  “Lada waits here,” Tesla Dart announced. “Keeps watch for us.”

  Redden looked around doubtfully. “How will Lada find us if he needs to give warning?”

  The Ulk Bog grinned, showing all her teeth. “Chzyks see in dark as well as in light. No difference for him.”

  So with the little creature scurrying off into the rocks, the three started down the broad steps to the shelf. Once there, Tesla moved over to a deep niche in the rock wall and produced torches. She lit the first using sparks from flint and stone, handing the other two to her companions after lighting them as well. Then she walked them over to the edge of the platform where a very narrow, uneven set of stone steps carved into the rock walls wound downward into the blackness.

  Tesla Dart gave them a look, gestured at the steps, and shook her head admonishingly. “We go very slow. Steps very slick. Fall very long way if you slip.”

  The boy and the shape-shifter exchanged a brief glance. That was three uses of very in about a dozen words. They got the point. One mistake and you were dead.

  They began their descent. Tesla Dart led the way, with Redden right behind and Oriantha bringing up the rear. They went slowly, just as the Ulk Bog has said they should, and it became apparent right away that haste on these stairs would be deadly. Twice in the first hundred steps the boy felt his feet skid and almost go out from under him. The
chiseled-out stone was ridged and broken and dangerously uneven. Dampness coated the surface of the rock. There were no railings and no handholds should you start to fall. The steps themselves were less than two feet wide in most places and no more than three anywhere. Perversely, Redden found himself wondering what would happen if someone going down met someone coming up. He guessed that had probably never happened, but he couldn’t help picturing the dilemma it would present.

  They continued downward for what seemed an eternity. Redden lost track of how long, but he guessed it was over an hour. They traversed hundreds of steps, maybe thousands—a torturously slow process that challenged their concentration and balance every step of the way. Tesla Dart let them stop and rest at regular intervals, although not as often as the boy would have liked.

  In truth, his imprisonment had eroded his powers of concentration along with his strength. Although a measure of emotional resilience had been restored with his freedom, and the level of his excitement at the thought of recovering the lost Elfstones fed additional adrenaline through his body, he was still not in the condition he had been before entering the Forbidding. Sheer force of will kept him upright and on the treacherous steps, but his agility was suspect and his concentration weak. He kept his right shoulder pressed against the rock wall, rubbing along the roughened surface to reassure himself that he was still connected to something solid.

  Ahead of him, Tesla Dart muttered and whistled soft incomprehensible sounds that apparently served a purpose, although he couldn’t think what it was. Behind him, Oriantha was a soundless ghost, a presence no stronger than his own shadow. He had to force himself not to look around and make sure she was still there. He had to keep reminding himself of what she was and what that allowed her to do. But it was still unnerving.

  The stairs ended in a tunnel that curved away from the pit and downward ever deeper into the earth. The cavern had the look of a passageway that had been hollowed out over a long period of time, its surfaces rugged but its broad circumference even and unchanging. It called to mind a giant wormhole tunneled through tons of rock, but Redden could not imagine the size of the creature that would have made it.