Blood of the Earth

by David A. Wells

  He lay still, focusing on his breathing for a minute or so before he tore his pant leg open and applied healing salve to the wound on both sides of his leg. He knew the wound was too deep for the healing salve alone, so he reluctantly drank one of his healing draughts. Lucky had given them each three vials of the potent magical liquid, and Alexander knew they may need them all, given the dangers they faced. But he also knew that he wouldn’t heal completely with just the salve and he would need his full strength in the coming days and weeks.

  Jack tended to Horace’s injuries and soon the wounded were sleeping soundly as the magic did its work. Alexander woke to Jack watching him.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Much better,” Alexander said. “How’s Isabel?”

  “Her wound is closed but she’s still sleeping,” Jack said. “The stone wall in the staircase is holding and everything’s quiet. Horace is mending as well but he isn’t awake yet either.”

  Alexander stared at the ceiling as he played the battle over in his mind. He’d seen a similar battle unfold in the dream with Rentu. All of the people were the same and the place was identical, but the events had unfolded slightly differently. In the dream, Jinzeri had followed the wraithkin, and the battle had taken place in the chamber below.

  “It’s strange,” Alexander said. “The vision I had of this battle was very similar, yet the details were quite different. I guess prophesy can only get the broad strokes right.”

  “Still, the insight was invaluable,” Jack said. “Knowing that we would encounter the enemy allowed us to face them on our terms rather that stumbling into them, and it helped us find this chamber in the first place.”

  “I just hope the rest of what he showed me turns out differently,” Alexander said. “In this case, the wraithkin did escape with the keystone. That was the most important part of the prophecy and it came to pass.”

  “What now?” Jack asked.

  “I doubt we can catch the wraithkin,” Alexander said, shaking his head. “We probably can’t even track him and it’ll be hours before we’re ready to travel. Once we heal, we’ll look for the vitalwood tree. Hopefully, we can get some of its nectar without too much trouble. After that, we’ll head back to the Reishi Keep and through the Gate to Tyr.”

  Jack nodded thoughtfully. “How do you suppose the wraithkin plans to get off the island?”

  “They must have come by boat,” Alexander said. “It’s probably waiting for them in a cove somewhere. I think I have some work to do.”

  He sat up and started drawing a magic circle around himself.

  “I wish I could get word to Cassandra at the fortress island,” he said as he worked on the circle. “They’re close enough to make sure that ship sinks in deep water, keystone and all. Maybe the Sky Knights at Blackstone can reach it in time.”

  With that he carefully crossed his legs and began his meditation routine. He had refined it down to a familiar process and it came easily. Within minutes his mind was quiet and he was floating on the firmament.

  First he floated through the stone wall blocking the staircase down to the chamber below and scanned about in the dim light, looking for Jinzeri … but the shade was nowhere to be seen. A more careful search of the room revealed two concealed passages leading deeper into the mountain.

  Alexander shot straight up through stone and earth, rising thousands of feet into the sky over the Reishi Isle. He picked a point on the southern coastline that had a distinctive stone jutting from the surf and began his search there. It didn’t take long moving at the speed of thought to find a boat moored in a small lagoon on the southeast shore. It was a fast-looking ship with a crew ready and waiting.

  He had no idea how long it would take the wraithkin to cover the distance. On foot he thought it would take a man the better part of a week, but the wraithkin could move with frightening speed using its ability to teleport short distances. A day, maybe two, and the creature would be making best speed toward Karth and Phane.

  With a flick of his mind, Alexander was in Blackstone Keep, looking at his message board. He was almost relieved that the board was blank.

  He went to the sleeping chamber and drifted into the dreams of a Ranger. He told him to relay orders to Mistress Constance to send Sky Knights to sink the ship if at all possible. As he slipped out of the Ranger’s mind, the man came awake and started pulling his boots on.

  His message sent, he moved to Buckwold in a blur. The world flashed by and then he was floating over the sprawling city. A single legion of Buckwold regulars was dug in south of the city; the soldiers were working feverishly to fortify their defenses.

  Alexander floated higher into the sky and found the smudge of color on the horizon that was his father’s legions. Then he turned and found the legion of Lancers to the south in Warrenton. He moved closer to the enemy to estimate their numbers and saw more than a legion. Next he went to the Warrenton docks and saw more troop ships arriving. Phane had his port and was landing an army that Ruatha wasn’t prepared to defend against.

  He floated out over the ocean and saw a steady string of transport ships moving up along the wild eastern coast of Ruatha from Andalia. They had chosen a route that put them out of reach of the navies operating out of Southport and Kai’Gorn.

  Phane had outflanked him.

  Seeing the scope of the danger, he nearly faltered and lost his connection to the firmament. A moment later he was back at Blackstone Keep in the sleeping room, where he found two more Rangers still sleeping quietly. He drifted into one and relayed the news and his orders that all available Sky Knights move to attack the Andalian transport ships.

  As he slipped out of the Ranger’s dreams, Alexander focused on General Talia. The world blurred and he was suddenly floating in a quiet office with the well-groomed commander of Ruatha’s southern forces. The man was reading a history of the border wars.

  Alexander drifted out of the office and into the keep that overlooked Kai’Gorn’s port. He searched for several minutes until he found a serving girl who was sleeping restlessly. He gently slipped into her dreams.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” Alexander said.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Alexander. I need your help.”

  She frowned. “How can I help?”

  “I need you to take a message to General Talia.”

  She shook her head. “But he’s an important man. I’m just a serving girl. I can’t bother him.”

  “Many lives depend on swift action,” Alexander said. “Tell him that a fleet of Andalian transports is moving up the east coast bound for Warrenton. Tell him to do all that he can to stop them without jeopardizing Kai’Gorn.”

  “But he won’t believe me,” she said. “I’m nobody.”

  “Tell him that Alexander spoke to you in your dreams. Please, this is so important.”

  She nodded timidly.

  “Thank you,” Alexander said as he drifted out of her dreams and watched her wake. She seemed unsure at first, but after some internal struggle, she left her room and went to the part of the keep that Talia used for his command quarters. A guard stopped her but after a brief conversation he escorted her to General Talia.

  Alexander was gratified that she repeated his instructions verbatim. General Talia went to work immediately, summoning his command staff and the Wing Commander of the Sky Knights that had been assigned to assist him.

  Within twenty minutes, two scout riders were airborne and heading east to determine the accuracy of the message.

  Next he visited Abigail. She was riding in the midst of her army, heading for the shipyard on the northwest coast of Fellenden. It looked like she was still a week or more away. Satisfied with her well-being and her progress, he slipped back into the firmament.

  One last errand. He thought of the young woman he’d seen in his dream with Rentu, the one with the strawberry-blond hair and blue eyes. His awareness coalesced in sparse woods somewhere in southern Fellenden. The woma
n he’d seen in his dreams was hiding in a thicket as six big, brutish-looking soldiers searched for her. He could see the palpable fear in her colors. She was afraid and desperate, yet underneath it all, he could see resoluteness about her. She was on a mission and she was determined to succeed.

  Right next to her was a man. It looked like they were hiding from the soldiers together, but the thing that caught Alexander’s attention was the man’s colors—he was without conscience, a killer, no, a murderer, a man who would kill with complete indifference. The woman was in greater danger than she knew.

  If Rentu’s dreams were right, and Alexander suspected that the important parts were, she was Lacy Fellenden and she was carrying the third keystone. He needed to find a way to help her. If she were asleep, he could deliver a message, tell her about Abigail. Then another thought occurred to him and he slipped back into the firmament and returned to his body.

  He opened his eyes and grasped the hilt of Mindbender, then focused on the mindset of being in a battle. With a firm hold on that mental state, he tried to find the place of empty-mindedness that led to the firmament. But the two frames of mind were mutually exclusive. Try as he might, he couldn’t be both calm enough to reach the firmament and believe he was in a fight at the same time. He opened his eyes again, frustrated by his failure.

  Jack was leaning against his pack, watching him meditate.

  “I can’t help but wonder what it’s like to leave your body and travel across the world in an instant,” he said.

  “Sometimes it’s terrifying,” Alexander said. “Andalia is sending an armada of transports up the east coast into Warrenton. I warned everyone I could, but I’m afraid we just don’t have the strength to defend against them while the bulk of our army is in Fellenden.”

  “Phane is certainly persistent,” Jack said. “Hopefully, the Sky Knights will be able to thin their numbers a bit before they reach Warrenton.”

  “Even if they do, my father is going to have his hands full,” Alexander said. “I wish I had the time to go destroy the Andalian Crown. Without the power of their force lances, the Lancers are just oversized cavalry.”

  “Perhaps a detour is in order,” Jack said.

  Alexander thought about it and shook his head. “The Nether Gate has to come first. It breaks my heart to risk Ruatha, but the consequences of allowing Phane to gain control of the Nether Gate are too terrifying to contemplate.”

  “So we go to Tyr and the dragons, then?” Jack said with a slight tremor of uncharacteristic nervousness.

  “I’m afraid so,” Alexander said. “Bragador has the one of the keystones. One way or another, we have to get it before Phane does.”

  “I just hope she’s open to reason,” Jack said. “We already have enough enemies.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Alexander said. “Get some rest. I have some thinking to do. I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Chapter 25

  Alexander examined the stone wall across the staircase leading down to the chamber where the Nether Gate had been hidden for so many years. Even though the wall had been created by the wizard’s spell, it seemed to be ordinary stone without any aura of magic.

  “Can you sense the shade?” Alexander asked Chloe.

  “No, My Love,” she said. “He’s no longer in the chamber below.”

  “I saw a couple of passages leading deeper into the mountain,” Alexander muttered. “I wonder where they go.”

  “This keep seems to be pretty extensive,” Jack said. “There’s no telling how far its halls and chambers spread through the mountain.”

  “The shade could be anywhere by now,” Alexander said. “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s chasing after the wraithkin and the keystone.” Alexander looked at the wall and sighed. “Sometimes I actually miss the Thinblade. Without it, this wall is going to take a while to break down.”

  “I could send it away, My Love,” Chloe said.

  “What do you mean, Little One?”

  “I can send it into the aether, out of the world of time and substance,” Chloe said.

  Alexander smiled at his familiar. “Sometimes I forget how special you are, Little One.” She buzzed into a ball of light at his praise, then went to the wall and it vanished into the aether with her.

  They moved into the natural cavern cautiously. Chloe brought the wall back again once they were through, sealing the staircase behind them. The chamber was large, easily a hundred feet across in an irregular oval shape with a rough stone ceiling thirty or forty feet overhead.

  Against the wall opposite the stairway was the Nether Gate. It was fashioned from a single piece of jet-black stone that stood twelve feet high and eight feet wide at the base. The side facing them had been cut cleanly and polished smooth. The stone was an odd shape, with the left side rising nearly straight from the floor to its apex and the right side describing a gradual arc to the ground.

  Alexander saw the familiar aura of Reishi magic that he associated with the Gates, but there was more. This device had a darkness to its colors that made his head hurt. The light of their night-wisp dust fell into it, leaving the surrounding area shrouded in shadow. He knew with terrible certainty that they had no power at their disposal capable of destroying it.

  As if to confirm his belief, Isabel sent a shaft of pure white light into the center of the polished face of it. The Nether Gate absorbed the light-lance spell without a blemish.

  She took a deep breath, mastering her rage before she spoke. “That spell was powerful enough to burn a hole three feet through solid granite,” she said.

  Alexander put his arm around her and shook his head. “We don’t have anything that can destroy it,” he said. “And I doubt we could move it either.”

  “We can’t just leave it here,” Isabel said. “That thing is the end of everything if Phane gets his hands on it.”

  “We don’t have a choice, but I do have an idea,” he said without elaborating. He didn’t want to risk Phane learning what he had planned, and as much as it pained him, he couldn’t risk letting Isabel know what he had in mind.

  “Well?” Isabel said.

  Alexander smiled. “Later, I still have to work out the details.”

  “Over here, Lord Reishi,” Horace said. “I’ve found a passage and fresh tracks.”

  A single set of footprints led into the dark of a small natural passage.

  “According to the sovereigns, the grotto of the vitalwood tree is only accessible through natural passages leading from this keep,” Alexander said. “We can’t risk the shade finding that tree. Hector, lead the way. And be careful.”

  The passages were irregular and the floor was uneven. At one time, water had flowed through this subterranean network of caves. The caverns turned and twisted, forked and meandered through the gut rock of the mountain. Horace marked their passage on the walls as Hector tracked the footprints of the shade. For over an hour they traveled through the dank and silent darkness until they saw a flicker of light in the distance.

  Jinzeri was standing at the end of long stretch of relatively wide tunnel. He saw them, but didn’t make any move to flee. Instead, he held his ground and watched.

  Alexander stopped, wary of the shade, and sent his all around sight down the passage. He saw hundreds of strands of silk hanging from the ceiling, dripping with venom. The ceiling was dotted with tiny glowing worms that were waiting mindlessly for their next meal to become entangled in their lines. The colors of the drops of sticky liquid slowly dripping down the silk threads reminded Alexander of the colors of the deathwalker root.

  “Stop,” Alexander said as Hector started moving toward the shade.

  Jinzeri smiled before he slipped around a corner and vanished into the darkness.

  “We have to find another way around,” Alexander said as a drop of venom splashed against the back of his neck. He looked up and saw that they were standing underneath dozens of glow worms and they were all spinning their strands of silk, droplets of venom slowly driz
zling down each one.

  He felt cold numbness where the drop had hit him, and it was spreading.

  “Retreat,” he said, backing out from under the glow worms. Within two steps he stumbled, unable to command his legs to carry him. He tried to regain his balance but failed, toppling to the ground.

  “Alexander,” Isabel cried out, racing to his side.

  Hector and Horace picked him up and carried him to a chamber several dozen feet away from the threat of the glow worms and laid him down.

  Alexander was aware of his surroundings but he’d lost the ability to move of his own free will. He was completely paralyzed by the fast-acting toxin.

  “Alexander,” Isabel said frantically. “Can you hear me?”

  He was powerless to respond with words but he could still communicate with Chloe. She spun nervously into a ball of light before regaining her normal form.

  “He’s paralyzed, but conscious and aware,” she said. “A drop of glow-worm venom landed on the back of his neck.”

  Isabel nodded to Hector and Horace and they carefully rolled him over. An angry red splotch stood out on his neck. She carefully scraped the venom off his skin with her knife, then slathered healing salve over the mark.

  “He says the cold has stopped spreading,” Chloe reported.

  “All we can do now is wait,” Isabel said. “I don’t want to risk choking him with a healing potion.”

  “That’s a remarkably fast-acting toxin,” Jack said. “I suspect Lucky would appreciate a sample, if we could collect some without further risk.”

  “I can,” Horace said, “provided you have a suitable container.”

  Jack smiled. “Lucky asked me to collect any rare or unusual ingredients we came across and he gave me a number of vials and containers,” he said.

  After Jack handed him a small glass vial and a little spoon, Horace concentrated for a moment and then handed them to his invisible magical servant. Jack provided light as the vial and spoon floated down the hall to gather the sticky venom from the puddles on the floor under each strand of glow-worm silk. The stuff had the consistency of honey but it was as clear as water. Within a few minutes the vial was full. Horace handed it to Jack, who carefully wiped it off with a scrap of cloth. He discarded the cloth, then slipped the vial inside a metal tube that Lucky had provided to safeguard dangerous ingredients.