“They were familiar with the terrain and the Elders did not realize the seriousness of the situation. Kali told me the truth only a few years ago. You are old enough now that you should know too.”
“That can’t be right,” Lorcan denied. His parents had been killed by other tribesmen? He had been told that they had died of an accident while they were on a hunting trip. His heart constricted painfully. Either way, they were dead, so why did it matter? A tiny voice in the back of his mind spoke up. It matters because now there’s someone to be angry at…
“Why would they do that?” he demanded, disbelieving. His first instinct was to assume that it was yet another lie spread by the Elders. Except that the lie was in not telling them…
“There was no reason. Kali told me that the attack was completely unwarranted. They just didn’t want the Myaamia in their territory so they killed them.”
Lorcan wiped a tear off his face and glared at Slade. Not knowing what else to say, and hurt that his brother would have kept this from him for so long, he stomped off.
He spent a long time wandering the winding pathways of the village, with no direction in mind. Finally, he set his feet on a determined path, aiming for Raina’s house. It was time to tell someone else what was going on. He needed to speak with someone other than the man in the cell.
He rapped on her widow quietly. It was still early enough that she wasn’t likely to already be in bed, but he didn’t think her parents would appreciate his calling on her so late. A moment later, it opened.
“Lorcan?” Raina mouthed, “What are you doing here?”
“Can we talk?” he whispered in a hoarse voice.
She glanced around her room hurriedly and held up a finger for him to wait. She shoved several pillows under her covers to make it look as though she was sleeping and extinguished her light. She then climbed lithely out the window.
“Where to?” she asked softly.
He grabbed her hand and together they jogged down into the Third Circle which had many fewer housing chambers and crawled to the top of one that was currently empty.
“What did you want to talk about?” she said in a more normal voice, her face looking slightly flushed.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately,” he started and she leaned forward towards him.
“Yes?” she asked expectantly.
“And I think that it’s time that more people know what’s really going on with the Elders.”
“What?” Raina asked, deflating.
Lorcan fidgeted. “Well, I’ve sort of been watching their meetings…”
“You’ve been spying on the Elders?” Raina interjected, and Lorcan immediately jumped to defend his actions, but at her next words found there was no need. “How did you do it? That’s so brave.”
“Uh, yeah,” he said instead, “I broke through their enchantments and made a tiny peep-hole. But I found that they’ve been lying to us. About a lot of things.”
“Like what?” Raina asked, her curious enthusiasm drawing him out of his apprehensive state.
“Like that my parents died in an accident for one thing, although I technically found that out from Slade,” Lorcan stated flatly and Raina gasped. “Apparently they were actually murdered by the Dena’ina tribe.”
“Oh no!” Raina exclaimed and gave him a quick hug. She pulled away quickly, and Lorcan felt the heat rising in his face. “Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Lorcan, and felt old pain coming back. “They also lied about the Arrival,” he said quickly. “The baby wasn’t sick; they cursed it so that it will spread some enchantment throughout the Lost Lands to completely wipe out any trace of the Dark King.”
“Well, that would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?” Raina shrugged. He understood her initial reaction, having had the same ideals drilled into his head, but knew if she thought about it, she’d see why it was wrong.
“But how do you suppose it will do that?” Lorcan asked pointedly. “Do you actually believe that everyone that carries his blood carries his morals?”
Raina looked thoughtful. “No, I never really gave it much thought before, but it does seem rather extreme to hate anyone who descended from him.”
“Doesn’t it? I mean, how long has it been since the Dark King forced us out of the Lost Lands? Since Sheila Greyclaw and the other founders declared our people The Forgotten and our tribes went their separate ways? Isn’t it time we forgave them and let it go?”
“Yeah,” Raina said with conviction, bolstering Lorcan’s ego. He had been having these doubts and frustration roiling around in his head for some time now, and it was good to get them out in the open. And better yet, to have them reflected in another.
“Do you know anything about what the Elders have been telling people about their current project?” he asked.
She shook her head. “My parents might though; maybe we should start doing a little investigating!”
Lorcan felt the urge to tell her that this wasn’t a game, but did not want to lose her support by doing so. So instead he nodded vigorously, “Maybe some of the other parents have heard things too. Although everyone is so darn secretive. Can you start asking your friends questions and see what you can find out?”
“Sure!” Raina agreed happily.
He walked her back to her window, where the light in her room was still off, her pillow decoy unmoved. She turned to climb back in the window after he said goodnight to her, but she suddenly turned back to him.
So quickly that he hardly knew what had happened, she pressed her lips against his for a fraction of a second before darting into the room and closing the blinds behind her. Lorcan stood there dumbfounded for several minutes, staring at the darkened window.
Then he smiled and sauntered off, his plans for reconnaissance momentarily forestalled as he relished the feeling of his very first kiss.
*
Katya knelt on the branch and observed the scene before her. She had watched the everyday activities of the Dena’ina tribe for some time now and had determined that the path that led to the west must be where they kept this sacred object. No one running everyday errands took this path, yet it was well-used and she had seen several troupes of armed men and women going back and forth – as though relieving the ones on duty before them.
The path itself was guarded as well. She had cautiously approached it the night before last and discovered that the vegetation everywhere off the path was dangerous. Most of it was the plant she had termed burnweed, as its very touch caused severe burns and prolonged contact could actually make something burst into flame. She had held a piece of cloth on the end of a long stick onto one of the bushes to experiment and it had completely turned to ash in a matter of minutes.
She wouldn’t be able to walk through a forest of that. She was sure that the tribe had used magic to grow it there – in the wild she had only seen it in small patches, with areas of burnt foliage around it making it easy to avoid. But here, they seemed to grow into one another, with no room in between. Even in sections without this particular plant, there were others that Katya was sure were equally dangerous, though she had not had the pleasure of coming across them as of yet.
The landscape was largely barren, with patches of short shrubs and a few areas with trees. It was dry, but not as hot as the open plains. Here there was a lot more diversity of land, with large canyons and mesas. She had hiked up one to get a better view of the area to the west and found that her suspicion that the entire surrounding area would be equally as treacherous from any direction was confirmed.
So the only option would be to go down the path, which was heavily guarded. It was a shame that Nathair hadn’t told her how he had transformed into a dragon before he had died. Then she could have just breathed fire on the whole area, or better yet, simply have flown over it all.
But perhaps she could still just go straight through it, but on the ground. She would need one amazing illusion to get past all the enchantments and mages, however. B
ut maybe she could try an illusion that they would not be expecting. The most obvious one would be to make it so that they could not see her at all. But pure invisibility would be easy to detect and they would be watching for it.
Second would be to disguise herself as something that they would expect to see on the path, like make herself look like the burnweed itself. But then it was harder to move.
She mulled this over for a while, watching a group of children playing in a field across the way from her. They seemed to be playing some sort of tag, but there appeared to be two teams rather than a large free-for-all. Katya could remember now playing tag with Hunter and the other children when she was very young. But those memories were short-lived. Once she had gone into the priest’s care she had no longer been allowed to be a child. Therefore, she didn’t recognize the game they were playing. One team was trying to get to a center spot where they had placed a bell and the other was trying to keep them away. Any children that got tagged apparently had to go to a section they had marked off with sticks on the ground.
She lost her train of thought and got drawn into trying to figure out the game instead, frustrated as she was by the lack of ideas. One boy suddenly shot forward, as though making a desperate break for the bell, and three of the children on the other team immediately moved to intercept him. Two others recognized the feint and peered around for the others who might try and use this as a distraction. Sure enough, a little girl from the opposite end moved a split second later and tried moving in around the commotion. The two other children who had been watching for this raced after her to keep her away from the bell. The two groups made a wild chase, zig-zagging all around. A boy stretched out his arm towards the first boy who had made the break for it and lunged at him. His fingers brushed up against the boy’s back and he yelled in triumph as his quarry slowed and threw back his head in defeat.
They turned to watch the other chase, and a cheer went up through the protecting group as the girl was also stopped.
And then the bell rang.
Katya’s gaze turned with the rest to stare at the center of their play. There stood the smallest child standing next to the bell, the gong used to ring it poised victoriously over his head. Katya watched as all the children in the ‘jail’ area flooded out of it, pounding him on the back. A misdirect within a misdirect. The children positioned themselves to begin again.
Katya turned her attention back to the problem at hand. Perhaps she could do something similar. No doubt they would be watching for the magical diversions. She spent several hours pondering her course of action before putting it into play.
Katya positioned herself at the end of the path, and took a deep breath. She waited until she saw the group of the guards coming down it. They were almost ending their shift and she hoped that it meant they would be tired and less likely to see through her ruse. She set off her first spell. It created an illusion within an illusion of a person trying to completely mask their presence and sneak up the trail.
The guards sprang to attention alarmingly fast. As she expected, they seemed to look around more for something else going on and she moved forward into her position as she set off her second diversion. This one was a spell that made all of the guards look like her, added several more people than there should be, and she put the same illusion on herself so that she wouldn’t be detected by the lack of magic on her. She stepped out of her hiding spot.
This caused the expected confusion and they all turned on one another. Katya waited for the spell she had already set off, but which was made to delay a few moments before going into effect. She hadn’t wanted any of them to detect the activating spell on her once she was in their midst. She felt magic all around her and thanked the Three that her own power seemed to be enough to withstand the barrage that was being sent against her spells. It didn’t stop them from detecting and breaking them fairly easily, but they could not trace it back to her.
She implemented the last of her plan, and several other illusions appeared. She also dropped an illusion she had on a dummy she had set up in a tree. She had set it just close enough to one of the burnweed bushes so that soon it should be going up in flame. When it did so, it was designed to let out a frantic screaming…
There it was. A shrill exclamation sounded in the tree above them and Katya released the final spell, making everyone on the trail invisible. She raced up the path as they descended on the ‘person’ who had supposedly just caught on fire and fallen from the tree.
She could hear shouts behind her as they realized that this too was another tactic meant to confuse them, and she increased her pace. Hopefully once she reached the other end of the trail there would be somewhere for her to pause and regroup. She wouldn’t have nearly as much time to come up with her next course of action as she had for that little charade as they no doubt knew where she must be heading.
She burst through the foliage at the other end of the trail and dove into a bunch of brambles. Luckily, normal bushes. She peered around her. The evening light made it difficult to make out the details of her surroundings and she automatically adjusted her eyes to the dim light magically. One of the benefits of having been a slave as a child was that it had brought out the very best of her abilities. She scowled bitterly. When the Dark King had magically enhanced himself, he had put these improved properties into his bloodline so that his descendants would be able to access them, breeding a far superior human. Katya’s time as an assassin for Karl had taught her to unlock and hone in these talents.
She blinked her eyes a few times and peered at the scene before her. She had come out into the section that held a large mesa in front of her. From her previous vantage point she had only been able to make out the large canyon wall and see that what they seemed to be protecting was a gigantic column of earth that sat in the middle of the fields of burnweed and other unpleasant foliage.
The pathway led straight to the cliff face which loomed above her. It ended at a huge arching doorway, with two marble white columns on either side. In the cliff face surrounding it, there were four cave openings on either side. Besides a bit of a ledge sticking out from each, and each connecting sets of two together, she couldn’t see that they led anywhere in particular. She turned her attention to the two columns. They were intricately carved and polished to the point of gleaming, even in the dimming light, and at the top of both was a burning flame. She backed up a pace to try and see where it was emanating from, but it appeared to be a simple oil bowl. She examined the stone with physical and magical sight, but she could see nothing else distinctive about them. Katya edged closer and could see that there was another, smaller door within the massive one and she turned her examination to this.
She sidled up to it carefully. There was no door handle. The larger door was covered in runes, which Katya found surprising, and she even noticed one that was the same as the mark upon her neck. Or at least what the mark looked like before she horribly disfigured herself while taking off her slave collar. She had seen it lots of times on Layna. She scrunched up her forehead, why would the tribes have runes? They seemed to despise everything about the Dark King and blood-magic.
She looked closer and traced a finger over one of the symbols. It looked like a picture of a flower. That didn’t particularly seem like a blood-rune. Another resembled a rainbow. Katya had never before seen something such as these. There were only eight such runes on the smaller door, but she could see no way to indent them as though unlocking the door through them, nor did they light up or make any other indication that by touching them in a specific order would accomplish anything.
The sun was setting at her back and as she stared at the door, words suddenly shimmered into view. She read them quickly, “The wind from the east, the ground and water under our feet, magic at our fingertips, and the sun on our faces. Together they protect us all.” It faded slowly as the sun set farther on the horizon.
Was it some sort of clue to opening the door?
All of a sudden, several
stone around the door burst to life and sent rays of light towards her. She backed away hurriedly, throwing shields up around her, but they did no good. Whatever the magic was, it penetrated them easily. Katya waited for something to happen, to start feeling a burning sensation or dizzy, or something, but there was nothing. The light beams wandered around her body for a few moments, and then they disappeared, the stones dimming.
Nothing happened for a few long moments. Then the door swung open suddenly. Katya peered around. That was unexpected. She stepped forward cautiously, not quite as eager to enter through the door which had so willing invited her in. Somehow it seemed more ominous that way.
Shouts sounded behind her, however, forcing her to a decision. It was now or never. She threw herself through the opening and the door moved of its own accord once more behind her. It slammed closed with a resounding thud.
CHAPTER 8
Natalya urged her horse to go faster. Dust was being kicked up ahead, and it could be Lord Morven’s party. Her excitement spurred the other horses into action as well and their troops nearly flew down the lane.
Trees whizzed past them on either side, but she ignored her surroundings, intent on the speck on the road in front of them. She kept her eyes glued to it, squinting in the diming light to try to make out its form. They finally neared enough that she could make out three separate shapes. A larger blob in the middle – most likely the lord’s carriage – surrounded by guards in front and behind. Natalya strained her eyes to separate the guards so she could see how many.
She could make out at least five in either section. So at least ten total. Would Lord Morven give up her sister without a fight? She thought back to his haughty attitude and sense of entitlement that he displayed so outspokenly. Probably not. Even with the Queen’s authority behind them, he thought he was better than everyone. And besides, he had to know that he would be thrown in jail for his involvement in the Faithful’s activities – there would be a fight no matter what.
Bricrui (The Forgotten: Book 2) Page 11
