Shock of Fate: A Young Adult Fantasy Adventure (Anchoress Series Book 1)

by D. L. Armillei

  “Maybe she isn’t,” Paley said in defense of Van.

  “That’s why Wiglaf is here!” Jorie said, still elated. “He was telling us Van is the Anchoress! It really didn’t make sense to me before now. I mean, Van, you’ve been useless—skill-wise, I mean. No offense. But the Anchoress is supposed be a powerful warrior. Paley . . . I still can’t figure out why you’re here.”

  “Maybe there are two Anchoress heirs,” Brux said, thinking of his sister.

  Van knew what it meant for her to be the Anchoress-in-Waiting. It meant her father had told Merloc that the girl he had captured wasn’t his daughter. That Daisy wasn’t the Anchoress heir. Meaning Daisy would no longer be useful to them. Van shuddered.

  “Or there is something we don’t know about one of Goustav’s heirs,” Brux continued, still in denial. “It’s possible that the—” Brux stopped in mid-sentence, as pebbles trickled from above.

  Van’s feet vibrated.

  The cave rumbled, then shook.

  “Hold tight!” Jorie shouted. “It’s another quake!”

  Brux covered Van with his body, as rocks and dust crashed around them. Trey, Paley, and Elmot ran in the other direction, away from the collapse. The noise was deafening. The quake seemed endless but lasted for only a minute.

  Van immediately checked Wiglaf. Two deep-blue eyes nestled in a furry white face peeped from inside her backpack. Wiglaf’s ears reached straight up, and he let out a short squeaky chirp. Van sighed in relief.

  “You okay?” Brux asked, brushing off.

  Van nodded. “You?”

  Brux noticed that Jorie lay partly buried in rubble from the mound of boulders now blocking the tunnel. Terrified, he rushed to her.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” Jorie said, as she stood and brushed dirt and stones off her clothes. She swatted away Brux’s help and checked on Zachery with the same fervor that Van had checked on Wiglaf.

  “I hope the rest of us got away from the downfall,” Jorie said. “Maybe they’re on the other side.”

  Jorie and Brux called through the wall of boulders to their missing teammates.

  There was no answer.

  “They’re probably can’t hear us,” Brux offered.

  “The tunnel’s completely blocked,” Van said uneasily. “Which way do we go now?”

  “The only way we can.” Jorie sighed. “We have to go back.”

  “Without Elmot, we have no map,” Brux said. “We’ll never find our way out.”

  Anxiety clutched Van so intensely, she stopped breathing. Trapped in an enclosed space with no way out was one of her main fears. She clutched Wiglaf to her chest and forced herself to take in deep breaths.

  “Van,” Brux said, concerned. “Are you okay?”

  Van nodded as Wiglaf purred away, fortifying her until the anxiety receded.

  “Don't worry,” he said, misreading her apprehension. “We’ll get you back to Paley and her Gemstone.”

  Back through the tunnel, Van studied the patterns in the ice crystals again. The longer she stared, the better she could comprehend the markings. She lingered to peer intently at a particular spot on the icy walls.

  “Why do you keep stopping?” Jorie asked in frustration.

  “The ice . . . it’s talking to me,” Van said distractedly. She could feel her eyes glowing.

  Brux glanced worriedly at Jorie and said, “Cabin fever, you think?”

  “No, no.” Van stopped gazing at the ice and turned to Brux. “I can read the ice crystals.”

  “And what do these ice crystals say?” Brux asked in a placating tone.

  Van responded to Brux’s skepticism with a scrunched face and said, “They’re showing me how to get through the mountain. It’s . . . a map!”

  “Ho-yeah!” Jorie yelped, fist-punching the air. “Another benefit of having the Anchoress on our team!”

  “What’s the matter, Brux?” taunted Van. “Feeling inadequate because you can’t read the ice crystals? You are the language expert.”

  “Ice crystals are the invisible language of the Creator,” Brux said, ignoring Van’s barb. “The Creator constantly and in many ways tries to speak to us. We just have to be aware and listen.”

  “Thanks, Professor,” Van said sarcastically, fully aware he had tried to change the subject. “Come on. This way.”

  “Elmot will handle Trey and Paley. Let’s hope,” Jorie said, as she gestured in a figure eight over her chest, while mumbling, “Thank-the-Light-and-all-that-is-good.”

  Since they had lost half of their supplies, along with half of their team, in the collapse, Jorie decided they couldn’t risk the luxury of sleeping. She kept them moving. Van continued to check the map in the ice crystals to make sure they headed in the right direction. At one point, the markings indicated they had passed into Yesod.

  Soon afterward, Jorie got cranky. “Let’s grab some shut-eye,” she commanded. “Just for a couple hours. No more.”

  Van told them the ice crystals indicated their location as the dead center of the mountain. She huddled with the two of them and Wiglaf in a dark, ice-free alcove and drifted into a restful sleep.

  Something jolted her awake.

  Innumerable tiny hands snatched Wiglaf off Van’s stomach and dragged her out of her sleeping bag. Children’s hands? She smelled moldy dirt and heard Brux and Jorie being abruptly awoken as well.

  “What the—” Jorie barked.

  Someone tied Van’s hands roughly behind her back. She caught a glimpse of grubby children just before a black hood yanked over her head plunged her into darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Day 11: Living World

  Tiny hands shoved Van onto a hard, cold seat. A metal cart rocketed forward. It rattled and shook on the track, tilting around bends like a wild roller-coaster ride. She couldn’t decide which was worse, the crazy death ride or the suffocating hood pulled over her head.

  Finally, the cart slowed and stopped. Her captors yanked off the hood and ordered her out. Van took deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. Someone from behind untied her hands, but she felt too mesmerized with the scene before her to turn around.

  The enormous cavern functioned as a busy mining community, run by deformed, grotesque little men. They wore shabby pointed red caps, soiled burlap overalls, and tiny round‑toed work boots, and most of them had untidy white beards of varying lengths.

  “Gnomes,” Brux said. He appeared next to Van, rubbing his wrists.

  “We don’t have a gift for them,” Van said. “Is that why they attacked us during the night?”

  “It’s just the gnomes’ way of saying hello,” Brux said sarcastically.

  “It’s customary for visitors to leave an offering for the gnome’s leader on the boundary line of their territory, before entering,” Jorie informed them.

  “I had no idea we were in their territory,” Van said. “The ice crystals didn’t say anything about gnomes.”

  Jorie shook her head. “I should’ve known as soon as we entered Yesod. We could’ve left something by our feet before we went to sleep.”

  The gnome guards shoved them forward—pickaxes, pitchforks, and sledgehammers raised high. It took two gnomes to carry each of Jorie’s and Brux’s backpacks, and one for Van’s pack. Another gnome held a wicker carrying cage in his hand. Wiglaf timidly peered out, his ears pressed back against his scrunched, trembling body and his eyes wide with fright.

  Van’s rage at the sight made her vow to rid the world of gnomes. “If you so much as lay a finger on him—” she threatened.

  A gnome poked a pitchfork into her back, prodding her forward.

  Large balls of crystals hung from the ceiling, lighting the cavern. The vang-lang-kshang sounds from the machinery rang through the cavern, as the gnomes worked the mines. None paid attention as the three large-sized prisoners paraded past them.

  “They’re mining gold,” Brux whispered tensely.

  “Oh, crap,” Jorie muttered. “Just our luck.”<
br />
  Van’s stomach flipped. “Why is that bad?”

  “Where’s there’s gold, there’s Balish,” Brux grumbled. “They’ll think we came to steal it.”

  The gnomes brought their prisoners to Hallux, the leader of the gnomes, who dressed and looked like the rest of the bearded gnomes—the males—though a bit plumper. A handful of glowering fellow gnomes surrounded him.

  “How did you find the path here, trespassers?” Hallux demanded. “No one comes this way through the mountain. The path is impossible to navigate and magically protected from stumbling upon by happenstance.”

  Van mustered her best commanding Anchoress-in-Waiting voice and dramatically said, “I am the Anchoress heir, and we need your help. We must retrieve the Coin of Creation to prevent another Great War and stop the Escalation of Dishora.”

  The incredulous look on Jorie’s and Brux’s faces was priceless.

  “She’s lying!” cried one of the gnomes.

  “She’s a dark sorceress!” hollered another. “That’s how she found us!”

  “They’re here to steal the gold,” another wailed. “To get us killed by the Balish!”

  “Silence!” Hallux bellowed.

  They quieted at once.

  “The only one who will know for sure is our Seer. Secure them in the cell. I will go call upon her.”

  They locked Van and the others in a cell carved from the main cavern, where they could view the mining operation through metal bars.

  “Good thing my stepmother isn’t here to see me doing time,” Van joked, in a lame attempt to lighten the mood. It didn’t work. Then a darker thought entered her mind. “They can’t hurt Wiglaf, can they? He’s a magical creature. Can’t he just disappear?”

  “Gnomes can hold him here in the physical plane by using a holding spell,” Jorie said sullenly. “Gnomes aren’t highly magical creatures but can connect to the power of the dirt and stones to make magic. They can’t run very fast. Probably know a spell to help them catch animals for food. Secretly use it when there’s no Balish around.”

  “Wiglaf will be okay,” Brux reassured her. “Harming a magical animal would upset the Elemental Lilla, and her wrath would be great. They don’t want that.”

  Van felt weak, thinking about her little bunfy being trapped there, scared and alone.

  Jorie paced, fed up with being delayed again. “If these gnomes continue to piss me off, I’m going to stomp them all to death.”

  “Fine,” Brux said. “Just keep in mind we need the gnomes to come with us willingly, in order to navigate through troll territory.” He stared at Van. “How are you doing?”

  His concern didn’t fit the situation. “Tired, but fine. Why?”

  “No feelings of lightheadedness?”

  “No, why?” Van asked, perturbed.

  Brux glanced inquisitively at Jorie.

  “Why?” Van demanded.

  “You’ve been away from Paley’s Twin Gemstone for too long now,” Brux explained. “You should feel sick.”

  Van had forgotten about the Twin Gemstones. She patted her pocket, with her Gemstone tucked safely inside. Why hadn’t she gotten sick? The answer came quickly.

  One of the ramshackle carts arrived. The gnomes deposited two human-size bodies in the cavern.

  Two.

  They removed the prisoners’ hoods. Van heard Jorie murmur, “Where’s Trey?”

  The gnomes immediately took Paley and Elmot across the cavern and threw them into the cell.

  “Where’s Trey?” Jorie asked again, anxiously.

  “He . . . he didn’t survive the collapse,” Elmot sadly informed them, as Paley wept.

  “What?” Van cried, tears already forming in her eyes.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “He was a good teammate,” Brux said, his voice cracking. “He died a warrior.” Brux wrapped his arm around Van’s waist. She leaned into him, sobbing.

  Jorie remained strong and gathered the remaining members of team Delta into a healing circle. They bowed their heads and held hands, while Jorie said a prayer to the Light for their departed teammate.

  Then more bad news arrived. The Seer needed time to meditate before meeting with Van. According to the guard, she wouldn’t be available until after the passing of one sun cycle, meaning tomorrow.

  “Damn!” Jorie said. She dropped to her knees, too emotionally drained over Trey’s death to complain about facing another delay.

  “How do they keep track of time down here?” Van asked meekly. Despite having Paley’s Twin Gemstone back, she, too, felt fragile over the loss of their teammate.

  Brux shrugged, as he nestled with Van.

  Paley flashed them a disgruntled look.

  “They have scouts that scan the perimeter of their territory above ground,” Jorie replied numbly. “There’s also other gnomes who live in villages above ground that tend to their farms.”

  Van expected her continued closeness with Brux to elicit a comment or two out of Paley, but her friend remained silent. Paley had dark circles under eyes, her nails were a mess, and her hair, untamed. Maybe after what happened with Trey, she doesn’t have the stamina to confront Brux about being fickle, Van thought.

  Eventually, Paley and the others curled into themselves for solace and sleep. Brux stayed awake with Van in his arms, whispering words of comfort to her until her eyelids began to droop.

  The moment before Van slipped into the dream realm, she connected to Jacynthia. Tears ran down Van’s cheeks when she brought up Trey.

  “Adverse circumstances test our will to stay on our true path,” said Jacynthia.

  We’re stuck here for another day. We’ll never get to the Coin in time.

  “When it appears no progress is made, it threatens our balance. We despair. Rather than be destroyed by difficult times, we must handle them with grace.”

  Van didn’t understand but knew she would get no better answer. She changed the subject.

  Will those horrible gnomes hurt Wiglaf? Us?

  “Things that appear unattractive or different are not necessarily evil,” Jacynthia advised.

  Their conversation ended when Van couldn’t hold off slipping away from Jacynthia and falling into a deep sleep.

  Vivid images of a clear full moon filled her dreams. The moonbeams bathed Van in light, connecting her to their power, and held the promise of helping Van fulfill her destiny.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Day 12: 12:00 p.m., Living World

  Three times a day, a gnome would appear on a precipice near the ceiling of the cavern and cry one of three things: “Welcome of the morn of Thorkin 183!” or “Mid noon is here!” or “The eve of night has arrived!”

  This was how the gnomes who lived and worked in the cavern knew the time and how they counted calendar days. Van assumed the time-gnome changed the “Thorkin 183” part daily and that this date correlated with what Van would call the day of the week and the numbered day of the month. Or, according to the Living World’s linear lunar calendar, the numbered day in the current cycle. She associated the word Thorkin with her calendar’s Thursday.

  The time-gnome declared, “Mid Noon!” and, despite Brux’s strong objections, the gnomes took Van from the cell. They brought her to the gnome’s Seer, Ildiss, a prophet who advised the gnome tribe. Ildiss, as a female, had no beard and looked the same as the other female gnomes, except for her clothes. Where the other gnomes wore overalls and work boots or farm dresses, she wore a black jumpsuit and a matching black cape with its pointed hood pulled over her head. A string necklace with various dried-out animal bones hung from her neck.

  The necklace made Van’s heart pang for Wiglaf. Brux had mentioned Lilla, the Elemental Guardian of All Animals, and Van sent a silent request to her for his safety.

  Ildiss sat cross-legged in front of a small pile of radiant rainbow-colored stones. Smoke swirled upward from the glowing stack. Van suppressed the urge to cough from the cloying incense Ildiss had tossed on top of
the stones. The Seer remained silent, didn’t acknowledge Van, and continued to rock slowly back and forth with her eyes closed.

  Van also sat on the ground cross-legged, the same as Ildiss.

  “If the Anchoress has been called forth, then the Escalation has begun, the first stage of Dishora has arrived—the Plague of Evil,” Ildiss rasped, her tone grave.

  Van didn’t know what she was supposed to do, so she kept quiet.

  Ildiss stopped rocking and lifted her head, though her eyes remained closed.

  Gnomes were so unattractive, they unnerved Van. She could barely bring herself to look at Ildiss’s gnarled teeth and cherub face, with its thick, coarse skin. Van had never before seen anything as disturbing as this creature and hoped never to encounter anything of the kind again.

  “The Escalation,” breathed Ildiss, “is too early. By at least a generation or so.” She opened her beady black eyes. “You seek gold . . . but not the gold here. You are a pure-blooded Lodian . . . of royal descent . . . but your quest . . . your quest is clouded.” Ildiss closed her eyes and rocked back and forth again, but this time she also chanted.

  She abruptly stopped, then removed her hood and aimed her strange black eyes at Van. “I have been asked to determine whether you are the Anchoress-in-Waiting, the warrior who carries the Eternal Light of the Creator within.”

  Van couldn’t help focusing on the Seer’s uncanny black eyes. Ildiss’s unwavering stare seemed to lock Van into the prophetic monologue.

  “During the Great War, the Balish sought to conquer all lands,” Ildiss said. “They would not stop until they had eliminated or enslaved every opposing tribe. Queen Cordelia, the Anchoress of that time, saved our tribe from genocide. She risked her life, using magic to help us burrow deep within the earth to safety, hiding us from the Balish, and thus, we became forever indebted to her and her ancestral line.”

  Ildiss closed her eyes again and breathed deeply. “People who consort with demons flirt with the lesser part of themselves, their darkest Selves. This leaves a mark. I can’t say what this mark looks like to the human eye. I can tell you this. You will remain powerless until you connect to your ancestral line.”