He raised his head, grin flashing, eyes crinkling. “Your family is always early for everything.” He tugged her back down.
“Supposed to be there an hour early…uphold halfling honor…” But she gave in when his lips closed over hers and his mouth explored her own and his taste, the taste of lover and love, exploded through her. Then she nipped his full lower lip, fisted her fingers in his long and silky hair and moved over him. “We’ll be fast.”
He laughed. “This time. Later—”
She stopped his words by sliding onto him.
The sweetness of loving blurred fast in her memory, the pleasure of the day squashed beneath the heavy weight of all the rest.
She’d finished smoothing her underwear when fear struck her. Her mother screaming, injured! Grabbing the first clothes at hand, sweatshirt and jeans. Sliding her feet into shoes, flinging the lodging door open, she ran.
Fire magic pushed her fast. She didn’t recall her feet hitting the ground, more like skimming over the grass.
Horrible sounds came—clashing swords. Terrible smells—blood and death, human, Lightfolk, Darkfolk!
She ran toward her mother’s screams, saw Four walk through the summoned dimensional portal from the corner of her eyes. A line of skirmishing in front of her. A gap…near her mother. Red blood. A final gurgle, and death.
Time slowed and each running step of hers lasted way too long, minutes, maybe hours. Too late!
Most of her family—save Rothly and her sister Nettie, stepped from the gray mist. Armed things swooped upon them, and they fell. The shock of their loss, their deaths, swept through her like icy hail, chilling her. She screamed and bolted forward, more guards swarmed into the area, around her dead and dying family. She dodged left, right…saw her mother dead, her torso slit from neck to crotch. Wrenching her eyes aside, she saw two brothers and a sister in a heap of glittering colorful clothes stained with blood.
“Jenni,” her father whispered.
She stared at him, his long and scholarly face gray-skinned and pale. He was on the ground, holding his side where blood spurted. “Go, Jenni, into the mist. Help Rothly and Nettie.” His smile had turned faint, his eyes had dulled. “I love you. I love you all.”
Jenni had stood until her sister Nettie had popped out of the interdimension, taken a look around her at her dead family, the fighting, and gone into hysterics—then was blasted by a bolt of dark lightning that shot to her center, blackly boiling away her skin. Killed by a great Dark one’s magic.
Mewling escaped Jenni and she doubled over. Aric ran into her line of sight. He scooped up a long elven blade from a fallen warrior, rushed to the new King and Queen of Air, fought, even as Jenni called to him, mentally and with her weak voice. If he’d heard, he hadn’t answered. He fought.
A desperate Rothly had managed to half step out, something that shouldn’t have been possible. He’d been holding all the magic the whole family had gathered, letting it slip trickling from his grasp so there would be no explosive release. He’d grabbed Jenni. “In!”
She’d flung off his hand, shouted the spell to enter the gray mist, saw a black and bloody knife coming toward her and jumped into the interdimension…catching sight of a bolt of dark oily purple magic hitting Rothly’s arm, twisting it, bending it like malleable plastic.
Then she was in the gray mist with huge sheets of flaming elemental energies on the verge of enveloping all. Sobbing, she concentrated on controlling them. Taking what she could from Rothly, who was now entirely in the mist, but shaking wildly, his aura broken, Jenni set her feet and unwound and released the powers her family had gathered.
Then a long, flashing time of effort, sweating and swearing and hoping that the energies wouldn’t escape her grasp, slip from her wet palms and limp and disoriented mind. Explode and kill all. She couldn’t see or hear Rothly, he was more than a pace or two away. Finally the massive sheets of energies drifted away, Rothly exited the interdimension. She swayed. She didn’t want to step from the mist into a hideous reality. But Rothly needed her, and she needed him…so she emerged from the interdimension into a beautiful summer afternoon and bloodied and blackened earth and broken beings.
The battle was over, and the Lightfolk had begun to take care of those lost to death.
Jenni stared at a freshly turned area of earth. A large headstone with the names of her family was already there. A fluting, elffem voice said, “This is my land and they are resting and will be honored forever.”
That was no comfort.
Her family was gone and she hadn’t been there to help. She had failed them.
“I’ll take you to Rothly.” Soft fingers closed around her arm and she was led away and minutes passed and she was next to Rothly’s bedside and he was spitting at her. Throwing salt and silver, casting her out. “You weren’t there! You failed us, failed me. You were with Aric, weren’t you? Having sex, instead of helping your family.”
She couldn’t deny it. Couldn’t speak at all. Was hot and cold and hurting and numb.
Rothly’s gaze went beyond her. “Aric, you betrayed me, as well.” Another handful of salt and silver was flung. “I disown you as a friend.” His lips twisted. “You both are dead to me. Go, and never let me see you again.”
Her eyes blurred with tears and the heavy scent of despair and blood thinned, replaced by the fragrance of the high country in winter. Fresh snow, pines…and sulphur.
It’s Fritterworth! The mental scream of terror jolted Jenni from her doze…where nightmares waited at the dark edges of her mind.
Mistress, help! Help me!
Shaking her head to vanquish the dreams, she called mentally, Fritterworth?
Out here, I’m out here on the balcony. Open the door.
She rubbed her temples, his desperation speared pain into her head so she couldn’t think. Jenni stumbled to the door. Hartha took you to safety.
Your cat died and they wouldn’t keep me.
“What?” Not Chinook. How could that happen? Her hand was on the crystal doorknob. She flung it open and stepped onto the high ledge. Cold. There was a small shadow perched on the outcropping and she blinked to clear her vision.
Jenni! It echoed in two voices. The brownie transformed into a shadleech, then a gray-colored crow, beak clicking. And in the air before her hung the Dark one. All blackness and white, sharp teeth dripping…something.
“You are mine now. Outside the Earth Palace. The shields up here thin enough for me to call a halfling.” Rich satisfaction laced his voice.
She couldn’t move. Was aware of piercing cold.
He drew closer, hovered over the ledge she stood on, lifted her arm and set her wrist to his mouth of many teeth. Bit down, hard. Needles of slicing pain became shards, became teeth. It took her breath, took her strength, and she fell, her arm ripping wide. He let her, stayed over her. This time it was her blood dripping from his teeth.
Her blood, her energy, her magic was pulled from her as if one great nerve was unraveled and stretched and grabbed and slurped.
Agony.
She cringed. Found she could curl herself into a ball. His pleasure at the taste of her blood and being whipped her like nettles.
Couldn’t think much, pulled against him and tautened the link between them and he cackled.
She rolled to the edge of the ledge…no rail, but a deadly fall would be better than this! She bumped into a magical shield and the energies flared huge and colorful and screamed in a thousand earthslide, wildfire, flood-water, tornado sounds—pounding through her, giving her enough strength to jerk away—or maybe it was the shock of the alarm that loosened the Dark one’s hold, but she rolled close to the edge.
And sobbed.
Her body shook and she gasped and fell off the ledge.
Gasped again as shadleeches followed her and attached to her wounds and feasted. She yanked at the nearest sheet of energy. Fire. Wrapped it around her and sizzled the shadleeches and soaked it into her skin and got enough firestorm to
lightning away home.
Crack!
King Emberdrake caught her in the middle of the air, pulled her from lightning-form to Jenni. Naked and panting.
Dizzy, her head lolled and she saw a midair battle…. Lightfolk warriors, the three other kings and Queen Emberdrake, flying. Aric stood, sword dripping ichor, on the rocky ledge outside her window.
Cloudsylph cursed, his words mixing with hisses from the fire royals. “He got away! Kondrian!” But the thing’s name did not draw him back to the fight. The Air King slammed his sword into its sheath against his thigh, looking as ugly as an elf could in his rage.
“Bring her to me.” The Water Queen’s voice was low and lovely and soothing, her arms were outstretched. Jenni hiccupped with tears.
She was placed in the woman’s arms and the pressure on her body made her scream and she was gone.
Jenni awoke surrounded by liquid. She shouldn’t have been able to breathe, but she could. Slowly she uncurled. The sphere holding her was huge, about fifteen feet in diameter. Peering through the greenish wall, she saw a room just large enough to contain it with a few feet on each side holding a couple of chairs. She thought the floor and the walls were tiled…easy to clean up when the orb popped, she supposed.
She looked at her arm. The torn and gnawed flesh still gaped but there was no sign of bone, an improvement.
A movement caught her eye and she swam—with ease, with no pain, whatever this liquid was, it was great—to the bottom of the globe to see a brownie. The woman who had watched over Rothly hopped from a large wing-backed chair.
Thank you for caring for me, browniefem, Jenni said.
The woman peered at her, eyes wide. You are welcome, Princess.
Jenni found herself shaking her head, her hair waving, tugging at her scalp. How is my brother?
The brownie lifted her lip in disdain. He is healing and unpleasant.
Oh. Jenni wiggled and it affected her whole body. The water was soothing. She licked her lips, as if she would be speaking aloud instead of mentally, and projected, The Dark one told me my cat was dead. Do you know if that is true? Even her mental tones were pitiful.
The browniefem tilted her head. Jenni could only pray that she was consulting with Hartha at home in Denver.
The cat is well. Lively. She likes having a brownie to tend her. The small woman shuddered.
And Fritterworth? Just thinking the name brought back the horrible ordeal of nightmares and the Dark one.
There is no such brownie called that. A brownie has been renamed “Crag.” Even through the distorting liquid inside the bubble, Jenni could hear the small woman’s snort. A stupid cat-name. Who would call a BROWNIE a crag?
He’s bigger than she is, Jenni pointed out. And the name has a certain solidity.
The browniefem dipped her head. That could only help. She motioned with her long four-jointed fingers and Jenni swam closer, until her head touched the odd liquid plasticity of the sphere. The minor earth woman placed her hand close to Jenni’s forehead. Sleep and heal!
And Jenni’s consciousness floated into the darkness.
When she woke up again, Aric was in the chair, relaxed but not asleep. Aric?
He glanced up at her, stood and shook his limbs out. She noticed he had a broadsword tilted against the chair arm. Walking close to her globe and shaking his head, he said telepathically, It isn’t often that a halfling gets to swim in the primordial waters of life. Never that I heard.
Well, the Eight need me. Looks like the Darkfolk are interested in the creativity bubble, too.
Aric’s smile was sharp. The Darkfolk love power and that bubble should grant it.
Power for the Eight.
For the whole magical community. He raised a hand, palm out. So they say, and I believe them.
Jenni kicked and swam the short circuit around the bubble. Shortsighted of Kondrian to eat me instead of use me as the Eight are, to balance the energies during the bubble event.
The Darkfolk like immediate gratification of their appetites.
Jenni ran her hands through her hair, let it separate and wave around her. The natural curl was suppressed so it was much longer than her shoulders. How long have I been here?
Five nights and four and a half days. It’s about noon. The dwarves are working on replacing the ledge of your balcony before humans can notice that it was gone. The Air couple state that no satellites got photos of the unfortunate contretemps—the Air Queen deflected any surveillance. The Fire couple insist you need fire healing, too, since you’re floating in liquid. They are appalled. So be ready to be baked.
Now that he mentioned it, she was feeling a little waterlogged. When can I get out of here?
His eyes took on a gleam and his lips curved in a smile. She thought he saw all too well into her globe. She shrugged and her hair floated and her breasts bobbed—and his smile got wider. They said that by the time you would ask such a question, you would be healed as much as necessary.
Jenni frowned, looked at her arm. The skin had closed, but she wasn’t sure all the tendons and muscles and nerves were aligned properly.
Swim to the top of the orb. There’s a porthole.
Huh. Up she went. There was a tiny two-inch slice of air at the top of the sphere, but she didn’t see any porthole. Then Aric’s distorted face was over her and he tapped a small circular spot that could be a plug. It was about an inch wide. Jenni stared in disbelief. He tapped it again in a deliberate fashion. Open it like that, he said mentally.
So she tapped and the plug opened like an iris, continued to widen until it was her size. Jenni didn’t see where the liquid went, it just…vanished.
Aric stood on a mobile wooden staircase. He leaned down and lifted her by her waist, swung her up in his arms and descended. Plucking a thick red robe off a peg in the wall, he stood behind her as she slid into it and tugged it around her. Wonderful thick fluffiness encompassed her. She examined her magical energy and decided against a drying spell.
Aric reached under her collar and drew out her hair, his hand stroking her head. “Jenni,” he sighed. Then he wrapped his arms around her, stepped close so their bodies touched. “Jenni.” His voice was thick, like fog in a forest.
“You didn’t suspect he’d come after me?”
He stiffened a little behind her, but his lips went to her neck and he inhaled deeply. “No. I didn’t think of that, either.” He hesitated, said, “Though naturally I did tell them that Kondrian had threatened you.”
“Naturally.” She tried not to sound bitter, but something leaked through.
He turned her around, grasped her by her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Jenni!”
“You weren’t almost eaten by the damn Dark one!”
Fear flickered over his face, then it set back into exasperation. “Who opened the door to Kondrian and his leeches, Jenni?”
She grimaced. “I did.” She tried to free herself from his grasp but was hauled against his chest. He smelled great, rich earth turned from winter’s frost to spring’s welcoming redwood needles. That nearly distracted her. “I opened the door, but he got to me first, affected me mentally.” She hadn’t sorted out whether her nightmares were her own or the Dark one’s fashioning. She trembled against Aric, drew his scent into her lungs to steady herself. “Kondrian said that the shields were too weak to protect me.” She didn’t know how that could be, she’d been in a damn mountain.
“Thick shields diminish the view and your suite usually houses elves.”
“Not a halfling like me.”
Aric stroked her back. “I’m not sure that the Eight knew that Kondrian was in the area or would attack you. I don’t think they set you up.”
“Then they were there awful fast.”
“We’ve learned how to deploy rapidly.”
She leaned back, looked at his face. Battles were in his eyes. That would definitely age a person. She glanced at his sword, she could see the whole hilt projecting over the arm of the chair
. “How much have you fought?”
“I’m well trained now. I caught the eye of Cloudsylph during the portal battle—”
“He was in charge of the warriors.”
“Yes. I trained. I fought. Other Darkfolk both major and minor, shadleeches. Only in the past two years, when the Meld Project was initiated, did I move from a soldier to a liaison with halflings.”
She didn’t know quite what to say. He hugged her, then lifted her again, went to the chair and sat with her on his lap.
There was an almost silent whoosh and the healing orb deflated into a nearly transparent sac hanging in midair. The atmosphere was heavy with liquid for moment, then that vanished, too, maybe into the walls and the floor, though Jenni couldn’t see it. She leaned against Aric, listening to his slow Treeman heartbeat. She wasn’t sleepy or hungry, and she liked the feel of his arms around her.
“I’m to debrief you,” he said, and rubbed his chin against her head. “Tell me everything you can about the attack.”
She started slowly, speaking of her dreams, then the fake call from “Fritterworth.” There wasn’t much action to tell of after that, just suffering. She hadn’t even seen the royals or Aric arrive.
“The Dark one was wounded,” Aric said roughly. “I don’t think whatever he got from you remained with him—not the magic or the energy. He spent more trying to escape. I got the big shadleech myself. That seemed to diminish him some, too.”
“Kondrian took my blood,” Jenni said in a small voice. “I’m not sure what that means.”
Aric cuddled her close. “We’ll find out.”
They rested in silence together. Together. It felt nice. Silence, no need to talk, as if all the flickers and flames between them that had been extinguished were growing from embers into a fire. How large would that fire become? Could it become? Campfire, bonfire blaze, wildfire that ate up acres?
A knock came at the door and Rothly entered, sneering. “How cozy.”
CHAPTER 16
ARIC STOOD WITH JENNI. HE SET HER ON HER feet on the far side of the chair, so it was between her and Rothly, near his sword, as if he were protecting her. “I don’t like how you are speaking to your sister.”
Mistweavers 01 - Enchanted No More Page 16
