by Jeff Wheeler
“Annon, destroy it!” Tyrus roared.
The Fear Liath crashed into the grove, snarling with fury. Annon could not see it, but he felt the monster’s awful presence, its insatiable hunger. In a strange moment of sudden calm, he understood the beast’s nature. It fed on terror, literally. It was a cruel spirit that tormented its victims with shadows and roars before rising up terribly with claws and snout to eat them alive, creating a feast of fear that only sated its hunger a short while. Some of its victims it dragged back to its lair, where it nursed their fear with helplessness and misery, preying upon those terrible emotions.
The insight was quick, horrifying. But Annon understood its nature now.
Annon clutched the stone to his stomach, no longer having any feeling in his blackened hands. He drew deeper inside himself, using the fireblood to quench his fear. His grief at losing Nizeera and Neodesha was snuffed out. His rage at the Arch-Rike was extinguished. Calmness and peace flooded his heart.
The rock exploded inside his crippled hands. Burning chunks crumbled around his boots, snapping and hissing into the detritus of leaves. The blast sent the Cockatrice flapping again into the trees in full retreat.
Annon turned to face the monster as the Fear Liath’s claws raked across his cheek, whipping him aside and toppling him. He still clutched a smoking fragment of rock in his hand. The pain in his face was horrible, but he was not afraid. Not afraid of dying. Not afraid of anything. He tried to sit up, to stare at the ravaged eye sockets of the Fear Liath, to face his death with courage and defiance. As he blinked through the pain, he saw the mist was receding away from the woods, draining like a ruptured sack.
The Fear Liath snarled at him, its breath too hideous to endure, and then it loped away into the woods, fleeing for the darkness of its lair.
“Kill it, Kiranrao!” Tyrus shouted. “It is vulnerable to you now. Kill it!”
“I know it’s vulnerable,” the Romani said. “I sensed it the moment the rock burst.”
“This is the chance to be rid of it. It will hunt us again at night and finish the destruction it started.”
“No.”
Annon, face burning with pain, struggled to his feet. The finality in Kiranrao’s voice was startling.
“You can’t take the Tay al-Ard from me,” Tyrus said. “Even if you stole it, I would get it back. You are trapped here with us until we finish the task we came here to finish.”
“I’m not your puppet! I dance to no man’s strings. Give me the Tay al-Ard!”
“I am not as defenseless as you imagine.”
Kiranrao snorted. “Hand it over, or I will end your foolish quest right now.”
Prince Aran appeared from the woods, his face haggard with grief. “It is over. Phae’s dead, Tyrus. Shion’s with the body. She’s dead!”
Annon dropped the smoking rock, seeing the pain in Tyrus’s eyes. He looked as if a dagger had been plunged into his stomach.
A single deep, full breath swelled Paedrin’s chest and he opened his eyes again as his body began to rise off the forest floor. The soothing, peaceful warmth permeated his entire frame. The pain in his belly was gone, even though his robes were stained with blood.
Tears of relief streamed down Hettie’s face as she embraced him, burying her face against his chest. He pulled her tightly to him, savoring the feelings and sensations that still coiled around him.
“Thank you, Khiara,” Hettie whispered, her voice choked. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” She released Paedrin and grabbed the Shaliah’s hand, squeezing it tightly.
Khiara looked ashen, but she acknowledged the gratitude. She rose to her feet, swaying slightly when Prince Aran appeared with the dreadful news.
Khiara’s eyes flashed with dread and she sprinted away, rushing in the direction that Phae had fled earlier.
Paedrin quickly made it to his feet, pulling Hettie up with him, and grabbed his fallen blade. He looked at Kiranrao with defiance, wondering what he would do after hearing the news.
“Dead?” Kiranrao said, his face twisted with surprise.
“I watched the Fear Liath sniff her corpse,” the Prince said, his expression hardening from sorrow to fury. “Tyrus, there is no point in going on! She was the key to this.”
“Khiara can revive her,” Tyrus said, his voice choked. He marched after the Shaliah.
“She cannot bring back the dead!” Aran said flatly. “She cannot do that keramat.”
Paedrin grasped Hettie’s hand and pulled her with him after the others. Even Annon followed, blood streaming down his face from the Fear Liath’s wound.
They arrived at a broken oak tree choked with mistletoe. One of the tree’s massive branches had cracked off. Next to it, Shion knelt, holding Phae in his arms. He was stroking her leaf-strewn hair, shaking his head, the look of abject misery on his horror-stricken face.
Khiara knelt nearby, her hand on Phae’s brow, shaking her head. “I cannot heal her.”
Paedrin squeezed Hettie’s hand, tears pricking his eyes at the sight.
Annon stared at the scene with mute grief. His heart ached, seeing the lifeless pallor on Phae’s ashen cheeks. There was no breath. Her arms were limp in Shion’s embrace, dragging on the earth floor. He took a tentative step forward, overwhelmed by his emotions—overwhelmed at seeing the grief on Shion’s face, the quivering mouth contorted with anguish, the brooding and haunted look in the eyes. The eyes especially, Annon knew firsthand, revealed the true torture of someone’s soul. Annon knew of that kind of pain personally and felt empathy overshadow him. Everything they had fought for was over. The quest had failed. It struck him so deeply that he felt like weeping. Tyrus shook his head in rock-hard determination, unwilling to submit to the brutal truth.
Kiranrao, almost in amazement, wandered up and stared down at Phae’s body, as if not believing what he saw. “She is dead,” he said tonelessly. Then he turned to Tyrus, his expression hardening with rage. “You failed again.”
The impact of his words seemed to strike like thunder.
Tyrus looked haunted, his face a mask of blood, debris, and coalescing sadness and misery. They were all blood-spattered and exhausted.
“We go on,” Tyrus announced, his voice cracking.
Kiranrao stared at him as if he were mad.
“If we find the center, we can use the Tay al-Ard to come out again. With that knowledge and with the Tay al-Ard, one of us can . . . in the future . . . we can come back . . . if we know . . . if we know where it is.” He was stuttering, his words blurring together.
Kiranrao spat on the ground. “I am not spending another cursed moment here! We flee and when the Tay al-Ard is no longer spent, we leave.”
“We go on,” Tyrus stammered. “I will not . . . there will be no . . .”
Suddenly Kiranrao moved in a blur, grabbing Khiara around the neck and dragging her to her feet, holding the dagger to her side.
Annon was startled, staring in horror as the Romani backed away from them, taking Khiara with him. Her eyes were calm, not frantic, which surprised him.
“Stop!” Hettie shouted. “By the Fates, Kiranrao, let her go!”
“We’re leaving, Hettie,” Kiranrao crooned. “The three of us are leaving this cesspool right now. Come, girl. I know you’ve stolen the device already. I saw you snatch it. We depart now.”
Annon stared at his sister in shock.
“Leave her with them then, Kiranrao,” Hettie said. “I will go with you, but leave her with them.”
The Romani clucked his tongue. “Who pays the piper, calls the tune. Come, Hettie. Now.”
“Kiranrao, you won’t escape here,” Tyrus said. “The trees will subvert you. Let her go.”
The Romani laughed disdainfully. “I’m tired of playing your games, Paracelsus. You betrayed me. Vengeance is the price. You will die here as you should have died before.�
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“You won’t make it out of here alive,” Tyrus said.
“Come, Hettie!” Kiranrao snarled.
She hesitated, her head swaying no.
Kiranrao frowned with a look of hatred and then stabbed Khiara in the side with the blade Iddawc. Annon watched her life snuff out and she crumpled to the forest floor. Kiranrao turned and fled.
“We are betrayed. The bells of the city are tolling. We do not know how, but the barbarians are inside the city. Fires burn in the western ports. Ships have been stolen and sail across the lake to ferry across more invaders. The citizens are fleeing to the Arch-Rike’s temple for protection. I’ve tried to summon a guard to defend the books but none are coming. The Bhikhu fight in the streets. All is madness.”
- Possidius Adeodat, Archivist of Kenatos
XXII
When Paedrin saw Khiara fall dead to the ground, stabbed by the blade, something broke inside of him. She was an innocent victim, had done nothing in the world to provoke or insult Kiranrao, yet she was the one who had been murdered. And the reason was brutally clear. Kiranrao knew they would not survive without her healing powers.
A well of grief opened up inside of him, unimaginable in its depths. Khiara had suffered alongside them, never complaining. Her knowledge and compassion had brought great benefit. She was quiet and shy, always glancing with unacknowledged love at Prince Aransetis. She did not deserve such a fate.
A feeling of raw hatred blazed up from a deep, deep well shaft in his soul. The feelings that exploded inside him drove all thoughts from his mind except one—Kiranrao must die. His treachery could not go unpunished.
He invoked the power of the Sword of Winds and rushed after the murderer.
“Paedrin, no!” Hettie shrieked.
She would not be able to keep up with him, nor did he want her to. This revenge was for him to exact. He would hunt him down. He would chase him to Havenrook or farther. Kiranrao was a dead man. There was no way he could outrun Paedrin.
“Hasten!”
He heard the word barked with a loud, commanding voice. It was clearly Tyrus’s warning to come back. What did it matter now? The Tay al-Ard hadn’t worked when they were attacked; it wouldn’t work now. What point was there to obeying him? They had failed. All was lost.
He heard Hettie screaming, but he dodged through the massive oak trees, rushing past them like a breeze himself, the sword held poised, his body spread like a hawk. He saw Kiranrao sprinting ahead and began to close on him.
The screaming went silent.
Paedrin felt a branch slash his cheek as he ventured too near it. The boiling fury inside him began to subside.
What had happened? Was the Tay al-Ard working after all? Why had Hettie’s screaming stopped?
The woods were dark and menacing, each way looking like the one before, interspersed with ravines and stunted stumps. As he swooped down on Kiranrao, the Romani suddenly vanished in a plume of shadowy smoke.
Paedrin plunged forward, pointing the sword where he had last seen the Romani, and it struck into the earth harmlessly. He stopped his flight, kneeling on the ground, breathing fast, beginning to feel the first vestiges of panic. His heart thumped wildly in his chest and he tried to calm it. He listened, trying to hear the sound of fleeing boots. Nothing. He realized that he had never really heard Kiranrao’s movements when he was engulfed in his shadow-cloak. Closing his eyes, he reached out to discern the Romani through his blind vision.
Nothing.
Wild panic began to throb inside his mind. What had he done? Crouching on the rugged earth, he began to gasp with fear and dread. He lacked Hettie’s skills, could not track a man through the woods. His decision to hunt down Kiranrao was purely born of hatred and raw emotion. He had never trusted Kiranrao—had never understood why Tyrus insisted he come along. Murdering Khiara had been the ultimate betrayal, the ultimate sign of the lack of Tyrus’s wisdom. Their whole world had been shattered, and he had felt such a raw surge of hate and vengeance that it made him forget everything a Bhikhu ought to be.
With mounting agony, he could almost see Master Shivu’s scolding eyes, his look of disappointment and disapproval. This was not how he was trained. This was not what he had determined to be. And even worse, he had left Hettie behind screaming.
Paedrin regretted his decision immediately. He felt the shock of the abandonment. They had left him. Turning, he launched back the way he had come, shooting past the trees, hurrying to return to the place where the group had huddled near the broken Dryad tree. After several moments, he nearly went mad with panic, wondering if he was already lost. Which way was it? The trees all looked the same.
Movement fluttered in the trees ahead. He could hear the coos and clucks of the Cockatrice, fidgeting in the tree line. What had he done? What stupidity, what recklessness! He cursed himself a thousand times, wending through the trees, trying to find the place of the massacre.
His robes were still damp with his own blood. He touched his skin, feeling not even the trace of a scar. But inside his heart, the wounds were deeper, bleeding, ravaged. How could he have been this foolish? How could he have lost himself so utterly?
There.
He saw the broken Dryad tree. Skeletal. Abandoned.
Dropping down to a low crouch, he saw where the others had been standing before they vanished, drawn away by the Tay al-Ard. His mind whirled to make sense of it. If the Tay al-Ard was working, why hadn’t they escaped the fight with the Cockatrice and the Fear Liath? Tyrus had summoned them to him and it hadn’t worked. Was that real? He realized how little he understood about the operation of the device or its limits.
Blackness swam in his vision. Or was Tyrus mad? Had he lost control of himself? Had he lost himself to the madness of the fireblood? He remembered the warning that Annon and Hettie had shared with him about using their magic. He remembered seeing the look in their eyes—like a craving.
Paedrin knelt, plunging the blade into the ground, and rested on its hilt, breathing heavily. The others were gone. There was not a sound from any of them. With a swallow, he realized the Fear Liath’s lair was nearby, probably a cave where the sunlight would not penetrate.
The fluttering of wings sounded in the treetops above him. Spasms of agony pierced his mind. He was alone in the Scourgelands. He had forsaken the quest and his companions in a fit of blind rage. And when the dark came, the Fear Liath would emerge from its den and begin to hunt him.
What have I done?
There was a noise behind him, the crack of a twig.
Closing his eyes, he drew on his blind vision, expecting Kiranrao to be sneaking up behind him with the dagger. He readied himself to swing around and cut the Romani in half.
No one.
He whirled, swinging the blade around in a broad circle. He stood still, poised, a bead of sweat dripping from his nose.
He heard a voice, a little distant and full of pain.
“Help.”
Baylen.
When Phae had squeezed the carved stone in her fist, she had felt its magic begin to swell. With the Fear Liath snuffling over her, the stone’s magic had drawn part of her—the living part of her—inside its peculiar facets. She lost all connection with her body, but strangely out of all her senses, she still possessed her hearing. The pain from her wounds was gone. It was strangely blissful, like a deep yawn that went on forever. There was no breath, yet everything had an airy quality. She sensed the Fear Liath sniff at her, smelling for a sign of life, but there was none. Then its snout sniffed against her arm and began nudging it, trying to loosen her hand from her pocket.
“Get back!” Shion threatened. She could not see him, but she sensed his presence, like a shaft of light in the dark, too bright to even look at. The Fear Liath snarled in savage anger and the two collided again. She could hear the huffed bark, the snarl of anger, and Shion was thrown again, smas
hing into the tree next to her.
Then the monster roared with desperate fury and charged away, its massive legs churning through the detritus and scrub.
Shion grunted and knelt near her body. She could hear the crackling of the leaves. She tried to speak to him, but there was nothing she could do—no way she could form any words. She floated inside the crystal, trapped like one of the myriad spirit creatures of Kenatos.
“No,” Shion whispered, his throat catching with agony. She was aware of his presence, squinting at the light and how it refracted within the prism of her prison. She heard the ragged intake of breath, the quaver. “No . . . no . . . no . . .”
I’m all right, she thought to him. Shion, I’m all right!
She experienced a strange disorientation, as if her body were being moved. The brightness intensified, but there was no way she could blink or shield her eyes. He was glowing so brightly. Part of her retreated deeper into the gemstone, trying to avoid the stabbing glare, but another part of her was curious and she drew toward the light.
“No,” he whispered with soul-crushing despair. “Not again.”
Shion! she screamed at him. I’m alive! Do not despair, I am alive!
He started to weep. The sound ripped through her senses, plunging her into depths of sorrow. She wanted to scream, to shake herself free. If she could unclench her hand, she knew she would awaken—to comfort and reassure him. But she could not control her body. She listened with pain as he wept for her. His words were so soft, yet they pierced her like swords.
“I failed you. I failed you. Not again. Please, not again.”
Shion! I’m here. I’m here. Please . . . don’t despair. I’m here. I am here!
“Too late,” he moaned. “I failed you. I failed you again. My darling. My love.”
There was another sound, the sound of a man approaching.
Phae’s soul stretched with suffering and anguish. His words . . . what did they mean? He loved her? What could he mean? Why was he saying he had failed her again? What was the source of such despair?
