by C. Greenwood
Orrick made some argument, but she could not hear what he said for she was seized again with a bout of coughing, this one uncontrollable.
Orrick offered her a drink from the waterskin, but she pushed the skin away. “I don’t need water. I need to get out of this evil swamp.”
“It’s the mist,” he decided, eyeing the green vapor surrounding them. “It must be poisonous to breathe.”
Panic washed over Eydis akin to the fear she had known when fighting the shadow monster in Castidon. Then she had faced an enemy she couldn’t see. Now she was assailed by one that might be every bit as deadly, and while she could see this new threat, she couldn’t fight it.
One option, however, remained.
“The air is clearer over there,” she said, pointing to a thin patch in the mist. “Hurry!”
They broke into a run, both of them struggling and coughing as they made for safety.
With the fog obscuring her vision, Eydis expected at every second to stumble into some obstacle. Instead, she found her way clear. Gradually, the mist began to dissipate. The air grew cleaner and the burning in the back of her throat lessened.
When she finally came to a stop, gasping for breath and looking back, she could see they had broken free of the area where the mist was concentrated.
“From the looks of it, we’ve escaped,” Orrick offered between harsh breaths.
His eyes were red-rimmed, and Eydis realized her own were irritated and streaming from exposure to the foul fumes.
But they had survived. She allowed herself to feel a moment’s relief. Then she looked around and wondered what other deadly traps this swampland had to offer.
She sat down on a fallen log to catch her breath.
“It will be sunset soon,” Orrick said. “We’d best start looking for a safe place to spend the night.”
He was right. The shadows were growing longer, and with so little daylight left, it was unlikely they would find their way out of the marsh before darkness fell. Much as Eydis hated the idea of spending the night in this treacherous place, it was even worse to imagine wandering it in the dark.
She was about to stand and begin the search for a place to sleep when she had a curious feeling of being spied upon by hidden eyes.
As she scanned the surrounding trees, a fluttering motion caught her attention. A black-feathered creature was perched on a low branch nearby, watching her. She almost dismissed it as a wild swamp bird. There must be many such creatures out here. But there was something different about this raven. A familiar sense of menace hung about him.
Then she knew.
A chill rippled over her, like a dash of cold water down her spine. It was Rathnakar’s raven. She had seen the animal long ago, in a vision of the Raven King’s tomb at Umanath. Then it had been the evil one’s companion. Now it was clearly his eyes outside the subterranean labyrinth that imprisoned him.
With a shout, Eydis grabbed a stone from the ground and hurled it at the raven. Her throw fell short. The bird cawed and flapped its wings in agitation. It rose from the branch, circled overhead, and then soared away, finally disappearing into the darkening sky.
CHAPTER TEN
They decided to sleep high off the ground tonight in case the poisonous mist returned. It seemed the best way, both to ensure the green vapor didn’t creep up on them while they slept and to avoid any wild swamp animals that might be hungry enough to approach them.
They selected a thick tree and clambered up it, wedging themselves among the sturdy moss-draped branches. Eydis tried not to consider the possibility of rolling out of her high perch in her sleep and breaking her neck. There were more than enough other dangers to occupy her mind.
Orrick settled in quickly, and she soon heard his snores coming from the branches below. But Eydis lay awake a long time, staring into the night. She thought of Geveral and the responsibility she felt for his death in the mountains. Of the hard times ahead and of her duty to thwart the plans of Rathnakar at all costs. Then, when such thoughts grew too heavy for her, she summoned a memory of the simple but comfortable cell back in the Shroudstone seclusionary that had been her safe place for so many years. Only then could she find the peace to rest.
* * *
Eydis stirred in the night. Dimly, she was aware of her physical body clinging to a sturdy branch as she slept among the green leaves. But another part of her drifted upward like a cloud, leaving behind her sleeping form. Leaving behind the marsh.
Like a vapor carried on the wind, she sailed over the wetlands. She crossed half the kingdom, passing over moonlit fields and rolling hills so quickly the ground below was a blur.
Then with dizzying speed, she dropped down, sinking beneath the earth itself and into a network of shadowy tunnels. She flew along the subterranean passages so swiftly she caught only brief glimpses of bone chests and funerary urns, of cobweb shrouded skeletons lying upon shelves carved into the walls.
She didn’t need to see more than this to know where she was. Although she had never been here in the flesh, she had wandered these halls before in ghostly form.
Fear welled up in her as she half expected to be pulled by some irresistible force to the ruined throne room in the lowest levels beneath the crypts. The same throne room where she had last encountered Rathnakar. Or perhaps she would find herself in the green room instead, the place where she had first laid eyes on the Raven King.
But to her relief, she was not drawn to either of those places. Instead, she was soon standing before a low archway, the entrance to a small cave-like chamber she had never viewed before.
She felt compelled to enter the room, although she didn’t know why it seemed important to do so. Only that it felt necessary.
After passing through the narrow archway, she was surrounded by close walls and a ceiling so low that were she here in physical form she would almost have had to stoop beneath it. The space was illuminated by a soft glow emanating from Eydis herself. In this light, she made out shelves lining every wall. But there were no skeletons here, only row upon row of books. Crumbling scrolls and dusty tomes filled every shelf, and many more books were piled in tall stacks around the chamber. Eydis decided she was in some kind of scriptorium, where important or ancient texts had been preserved, probably by many generations of crypt keepers.
She didn’t give further attention to the shelved books for her eye was immediately caught by what must surely have been the most valued object here.
An open book lay on a low table that was the only furnishing in the room. Eydis was faintly surprised to find that her ghostly fingers didn’t pass through the tome when she went to examine it. She was able to flip back the rotting cover and discover that it was inscribed across the front with ancient runes. The writing must be in the old tongue for she understood little of it. It might read “Book of Death” or perhaps “Book of Sorrows” but she could not be sure of either title. Despite years of study at Shroudstone, she had never excelled at the ancient language of the early Lythnians.
She turned her attention to the brittle, yellowing pages the book had been opened to. On one side was a rough sketch of an unfamiliar item that looked like a black key. She was unable to read the surrounding inscription. On the opposite page was another sketch.
She drew a startled breath, for she recognized this image at once. It was the golden scepter she had so inadvertently acquired, the origins of which remained a mystery. All she knew of the scepter was that it had first come into her hands in the form of crystals entrusted to her by a dying adherent during the flight from Asincourt. Tears of the Mother, the adherent had called them. The crystals had later magically transformed into a scepter, one Rathnakar and his minions seemed desperate to possess for reasons Eydis could only guess at.
Now she studied the ancient writing around the sketch, trying to summon to memory everything she had ever learned of the old tongue. Her resulting translation was unclear and full of gaps. But she surmised from the little she made out that there was, as s
he had already known, some sort of power associated with the scepter. That it could be used to free what once was bound.
Immediately, Eydis’s thoughts ran to Rathnakar. Thus far, the Raven King’s mortal frame had appeared bound to the Umanath tombs, leaving him reliant on servants of shadow to carry out his orders. But perhaps the scepter could release him from the tombs?
If so, his wish was likely to be fulfilled soon, if it hadn’t been already. The shadow monster had succeeded in stealing the scepter in Castidon, and it might, even now, be in the hands of Rathnakar.
She shuddered to imagine the damage the Raven King could wreak were he freed to roam Earth Realm at will.
As if summoned by her very thoughts, she became aware of a sinister presence watching over her. Rathnakar. She whirled around to find him filling the arched doorway, blocking the only escape route.
He looked as he had all the previous times she had seen him. He was encased in black armor with spiked shoulder pauldrons, and his helmet was worked into a winged-skull design with red gemstones over the eyes. He stood taller than any mortal, towering over Eydis and making the small chamber seem even smaller.
At sight of him, Eydis instinctively jerked backward in fear, her ethereal form retreating from him, from the room, from Umanath itself. The scene before her shifted, and she suddenly found herself in a different place.
She was no longer a ghost, but neither had she returned to her natural body. She was looking out the eyes of another, an experience so different she immediately concluded it was no human form she inhabited but that of an animal.
She was perched in a treetop, the branch beneath her swaying gently in the wind, her feathers ruffled by the night breeze. She was keenly aware of a desire to fill her empty stomach and of a thousand other small sensations and distractions. But she ignored these pestering urges and focused on the task that mattered most. Waiting.
Sprawled asleep in the limbs of a neighboring tree were the two humans she must not lose sight of.
Keep watch. The voiceless command echoed through her consciousness. Follow and report.
* * *
Eydis woke with a start, nearly falling out of her precarious position in the tree. It took her a moment to recognize her leafy surroundings and to remember why she was sleeping off the ground.
The first faint light of dawn revealed a seemingly peaceful swampland below. No enemies. No green mist. But she couldn’t feel at ease. Not with the remnants of last night’s nightmare still fresh in her mind as she rubbed her eyes and sat upright.
She glanced toward the tree across from her and found herself looking directly into the beady eyes of a black bird. Rathnakar’s raven had returned.
Instantly, the memory flashed through her head of having briefly inhabited the bird’s body earlier. Of having looked through its eyes down onto her and Orrick’s sleeping forms. She remembered Rathnakar’s voice ordering her to keep watch.
Quickly, she scrambled down onto the branch below, meaning to wake Orrick. But her movement sent up a flutter of black wings. A whole flock of startled birds took flight from the surrounding trees. Eydis couldn’t count their numbers as they swooped from branch to branch, circling and surrounding her.
She kept very still until, gradually, the ravens settled down again. Returning to their perches, they resumed their silent watching and waiting.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Orrick
Orrick was awakened by someone shaking him roughly and shouting for him to run. It took him a moment to get his bearings and figure out why the ground was so far distant. Even when he realized he was up a tree and remembered the reason for it, Eydis’s frantic orders for him to run made no sense. He saw no sign of returning mist or of any other dangers below.
But he responded to the urgency in her voice. Still groggy from sleep, he followed her example in climbing down the tree and dropping heavily to the ground. In the half-light of early morning, the marsh seemed peaceful enough.
Before he could ask what was happening, Eydis was already dashing off. He had no choice but to take to his heels after her, with scarcely time to secure his sword and traveler’s pack.
The direction Eydis took them seemed to lead away from the heart of the swampland. The terrain was changing, the earth growing firmer and sloping gently uphill. The vegetation thinned.
When Eydis slowed enough for him to catch up, he demanded, “Are we chasing after something or are we the ones being chased?”
For answer, she pointed back the way they had come. Orrick looked back to see a dark cloud following close behind them. It took him a moment to realize the dark mass was in fact a flock of birds swarming toward them.
“Rathnakar’s creatures have been sent to report our whereabouts,” she gasped between breaths.
He was about to ask why she took the seemingly ordinary flock of birds for enemy spies when he was distracted by something more important.
“It’s back,” he realized.
Eydis had come to a standstill to catch her breath. “What are you talking about?”
“Look around us.” He indicated the unnaturally colored mist creeping up from the ground.
There was no time to agree on a plan. They had both seen what this mist could do. There was no defense but the one they took—to break into a run again.
Eydis led the way, continuing to head into the hills. The ground became rocky, the landscape barren but for occasional clumps of tall grass and a mosslike growth covering the rocks. Orrick spotted also a few of the long red-leafed vines that had grown so thickly back in the swamp.
The mist was thinner here. A high wind swept over these hills, driving the worst of the fog away. When next they paused to look back, they could clearly see that the green mist, like the marshes, would soon be left behind.
“Looks like we lost the ravens too,” Orrick observed. “They’re reluctant to fly into the foul vapor.”
But Eydis could not have heard him for she had begun coughing uncontrollably, choked by the last clinging tendrils of mist.
Seeing that she remained doubled over, unable to continue, Orrick swept her into his arms to carry her out of the fog. He half expected her to protest that she could carry herself, but she didn’t. She appeared too near unconsciousness to know or care what was happening.
Orrick’s throat was now burning with every indrawn breath, but he refused to consider what would happen if he too became unable to go on. There would be no hope for either of them if he collapsed.
Luckily, they reached the top of the rise then, and the wind scouring the hilltop snatched up the remnants of the mist and carried it away.
Sucking the clean cool air into his lungs, Orrick felt his head clear and his spirits lift. They might just make it after all.
It was at that instant that he put his foot down carelessly and felt the ground give way beneath him. One moment, he had been standing on solid earth. The next, he had sunk up to his knees in some mud-like substance.
He tried to extricate himself. But the more he moved, the more the mud sucked at him, pulling him down. He was in above his waist and still sinking. The barely conscious Eydis grew heavy in his arms, the additional weight of her making it more awkward to keep his balance in the shifting sludge.
He did the only thing he could do. He tossed her clear of the mud. She landed with a thud to roll across the ground where she lay still. It was impossible to tell from this distance if she was all right or even if she was aware of what was happening.
But he could spare no more than a glance her way. He was beginning to realize his own life might now be in jeopardy as the mud crept higher. Thrashing in an effort to escape the clinging muck, he was only pulled in deeper and deeper. The safety of solid ground was mere feet away, but it might as well have been miles for he was unable to reach it.
He searched frantically for something, anything, to hold onto. A great rock was half sunken into the ground near the edge of the mud. If he could just get his hands around it, maybe
he could drag himself out of the sludge.
He struggled toward his goal, aware even as he did it that time was running out and that his efforts were making it slip away faster. But it didn’t matter. At the rate he was sinking, unless he reached that rock, he had only minutes to live anyway.
Straining forward, dragging himself through the mud, he felt his strength giving out. And still safety was beyond reach. The foul-smelling mud rose to his chest. He kept his arms high so they wouldn’t become as trapped as the rest of him. But it made no difference. The mud reached his shoulders.
Desperate thoughts flashed through his mind. They weren’t thoughts of friends or family. He had few enough of either. No, these were memories of the night enemies from the Lostlands took the fortress at Endguard. Of the slaughter of the defenders, Orrick’s countrymen and brothers in arms. If he died here, he would never have the chance to clear himself of the charge of aiding the enemy. He would forever be remembered as a cowardly betrayer.
Outrage at the injustice flooded him, but the extra strength his anger lent could do him no good. It would take more than mere strength or determination to save him now.
As he fought the hopelessness of his fate, something landed beside him, plunking down in the wet mud just an arm’s length away. It was a thick red-leafed vine as long as a rope. Orrick looked to see Eydis at the edge of solid ground, holding the other end of the line.
“Catch hold and pull!” she yelled at him.
Orrick didn’t need to be commanded twice. He snagged hold of the vine with one hand, wrapping it around his forearm, and pulled with all his remaining strength. He expected at any second to hear the vine snap, to feel it go slack in his grip. But the line held firm as, inch by inch, he drew himself forward and at last reached the edge of the mud.
With Eydis pulling and his hand still clenched around the life-saving vine, he hauled himself onto solid ground, free of the dangerous mud.
