Then they waited, with Chloe providing frequent reports on Alexander’s well-being. After about an hour, he started to regain some feeling in his fingers and toes. An hour after that, he was nearly fully recovered.
“That’s some potent stuff,” he said. “One drop put me down. I suspect a few more would have killed me.”
“How did the shade get through there?” Isabel asked.
“I don’t think he did,” Hector said. “I’ve reexamined his tracks and it looks like he went that way initially, but backtracked in his own footprints and then very carefully stepped on stones to cover his real path out that passage over there.”
“So he tried to walk us into a trap and was waiting for us so he could watch,” Alexander said. “Let’s see if we can catch up with him and at least leave him without a body.”
They continued into the dark by the light of their night-wisp dust, moving slowly and cautiously. The encounter with the glow worms had made them all more wary.
Several hours later the Sovereign Stone pulsed with red light, went back to its normal soft glow, then pulsed again. Alexander stopped dead in his tracks. Everyone looked at him with curiosity.
“Why did it do that?” Isabel asked.
“The Wizard’s Den,” Alexander said. “The sovereigns told me the Stone would pulse with light about a day before the Wizard’s Den opened. This changes things. As soon as we’re done here, we have to get back to Ruatha as quickly as possible.”
“I don’t understand,” Isabel said.
“There are spellbooks in the Wizard’s Den,” Alexander said, “including a banishing spell. Our wizards need to study those books and learn everything they can from them.”
“You mean we could be rid of the shades, once and for all?” Isabel asked.
“And the wraith queen,” Alexander said.
They traveled through the dark for the rest of the day. It was a confusing maze of twisting and turning caverns. Occasionally, they became disoriented or ran into dead ends and had to backtrack. Alexander stopped several times and used his clairvoyance to chart a course but it was difficult because it was so dark. Even with his magical sight, he couldn’t get a clear picture of their environment.
They came upon glow worms a few more times and had to backtrack to avoid them. The time lost was worth it though. Alexander didn’t want to find out what would happen if several drops of the potent poison got on one of them. When they were exhausted, they stopped in a larger chamber and made a small camp. It was cold and dank but they slept well from sheer fatigue, waking some time later, though none of them knew if it was day or night. In this place such a concept had no meaning.
Three hours later, they rounded a corner and saw a glimmer of light in the distance. Alexander wanted to hurry but he knew this was the most likely place for Jinzeri to spring another trap, so they moved with a measured and cautious pace. The cavern passage was broken on one side; a crack in the stone of the mountain wide enough to pass through led into a small valley filled with a lake.
They stepped out onto a stone shelf ten feet above the water of the deep lake and caught their first glimpse of the vitalwood tree.
The valley was actually a deep pit in the mountain with stone walls rising hundreds of feet on all sides. It was only about three hundred feet across at its widest point and there were no other entrances. In the middle of the deep blue waters of the lake was a small island, fifty or sixty feet across, with lush green grass blanketing its surface. The vitalwood tree stood directly in the center of the island.
Alexander had seen the colors of dragons, wizards, and fairies … but this surpassed them all. It radiated vital life energy in waves of undulating power. Physically, it looked like a giant oak tree with lush, broad leaves and thousands of pure white flowers all in bloom. It was beautiful and awe-inspiring—for a long time they just stood there, taking in the sheer majesty of the tree. It was a thing of such beauty that Alexander felt a deep sense of gratitude for the privilege of simply looking at it.
Chloe buzzed into a ball of light, floating higher into the air as she did.
“My kind came to the world of time and substance from the realm of light to frolic under the shade of the vitalwood. I never fully understood why until now. I can only imagine an entire forest of such magnificent trees covering the world.”
“For the first time in my entire life, I think I’m actually at a loss for words,” Jack said.
Alexander took Isabel’s hand.
He could not only see the aura of the tree, he could actually feel it. It permeated him with calm tranquility, a feeling of belonging and acceptance that he had only found before in Isabel’s love. In the presence of the vitalwood tree, everything felt right with the world.
Before them, at the edge of the stone shelf, a being of pure white light coalesced out of nothingness, taking form and substance between them and the tree.
“I am Selaphiel,” he said. “You may not pass.”
He stood ten feet tall in the form of a man, but that’s where the similarity ended. His skin was pure white and he glowed so brightly that no one, save Alexander, could look directly at him. He had no hair and wore no clothes, nor carried any weapons, yet it was obvious that he was more than a match for any power they had at their disposal.
“I am Alexander Reishi,” Alexander said, drawing the Sovereign Stone from under his tunic. “I have come for three drops of nectar from the vitalwood tree and nothing more. I have seen a great many things, but nothing of such surpassing beauty as this tree. I will do no harm, but I must have the nectar to save the one I love.”
“I have been charged by one of your ancestors with protecting this tree,” Selaphiel said. “For millennia, I have watched over her, waiting for the day when she would choose to spread her seed into the world again. Why should I grant you what you seek?”
“Because my need is driven by love,” Alexander said.
“And yet there is darkness within the one you would save,” Selaphiel said, turning to Isabel, “although, there is also light.”
“We wish to banish the darkness from her,” Alexander said. “The Reishi Sovereigns have told me of a potion that can save her, but it requires the nectar of the vitalwood tree.”
Selaphiel turned to Chloe as if Alexander was of little consequence. “You are a long way from home, Chloe.”
“As are you, Selaphiel,” Chloe said, flitting up to within a few feet of his face.
“You have bound yourself to this mortal,” he said.
She nodded.
“So you will be coming home soon.”
“Yes.”
“And he is worthy of your love?” he asked.
“He is,” she said.
Selaphiel thought for a moment.
“I will permit you to gather the nectar he has requested, but the mortals must not pass,” he said.
She looked to Alexander. He nodded, smiling.
“Bargain struck,” Chloe said.
She spun into a ball of light at the same moment that Selaphiel’s entire body pulsed pure white.
“Darkness nears,” he said. “Jinzeri, I can smell you. Show yourself.”
The shade stepped out of the crack in the stone wall and scanned the scene. When he saw the tree, his face contorted in a mixture of rage and lust—rage that such a thing of beauty existed and lust to destroy it.
Selaphiel looked from Jinzeri to Isabel.
“This demon is bound to the darkness within you,” he said.
“She gave birth to me,” Jinzeri said mockingly. “Of course, Alexander here helped. Without him, she would never have been a viable conduit between the netherworld and the world of time and substance. And my favorite part—Alexander did it all for love.” He tipped his head back and laughed. “He has doomed the world, and all for love,” he said, still laughing.
“The world has not fallen yet,” Selaphiel said, “and you will not be here to see the day when it does.”
“Are you threateni
ng me, Selaphiel?” Jinzeri said. “You know the price of what you suggest. You cannot banish me without relinquishing your post.”
“I could just kill you,” Alexander said.
“When will you learn?” Jinzeri said. “You can’t kill me … because I’m already dead.”
“Maybe I can’t kill you, but I can leave you without a body,” Alexander said.
Jinzeri shrugged, “I’ll find another.” He turned back to Selaphiel as if dismissing any threat Alexander posed.
“If you banish me, who will guard the tree and all it represents?” Jinzeri asked in a knowing sort of way.
“I can place the tree beyond your reach, beyond anyone’s reach,” Selaphiel said.
“For a time, perhaps,” Jinzeri said. “But my brothers and I are patient. Now that I know where it is, we will finish the job we started so long ago.”
Selaphiel pulsed with light and Alexander saw an undercurrent of rage undulate through his puissant colors. Alexander’s mind raced. He was missing a vital piece of information and he knew better than most the value of complete information. He also knew that the time for words would soon end. Above all, he needed what he’d come for.
“Gather some nectar for me, Little One,” Alexander said silently to Chloe. She spun into a ball of light and vanished into the aether.
“You remember that time, don’t you, Selaphiel?” Jinzeri taunted. “Soot and ash blotted out the sun for an entire season. The wail of anguish that tore through the world at the death of the vitalwood forest brought despair to all. It was a delicious triumph, or it would have been had it not been for this one tree.”
“You failed then and you will fail now,” Selaphiel said. “The forest will be reborn and you will be cast down into the darkness where you belong.”
“Go ahead, then,” Jinzeri said. “Banish me. I’ll find my way out again. I always do.” Jinzeri waited a moment with feigned expectation. When Selaphiel took no action, he laughed derisively.
“You are as powerless as these mortals,” Jinzeri said, “bound by your own empty values. Without the will to act, all the power in the world is meaningless.”
“Sometimes the greatest thing you can do with power is withhold it,” Selaphiel said.
Alexander began to feel a strange sensation building in his head. Pressure behind his forehead grew swiftly. He staggered with the sudden pain of it as the Sovereign Stone pulsed with crimson light and the door to the Wizard’s Den opened.
The room beyond was a fifty-foot square with arched ceilings, twenty feet high and dotted with a dozen glowing stones that cast a warm illumination. A single door occupied the center of the far wall. The center of the right wall held a hearth with several comfortable-looking chairs arrayed before it. The middle of the room contained an elegantly carved table large enough to seat four to a side and one on each end surrounded by ten matching chairs. The left wall held a four-poster bed in the far corner with a large footlocker pushed up against it and a small night table and lamp beside it. An ornately carved and polished desk sat in the corner to the left of the door with a large set of bookshelves occupying the space between the desk and the bed.
Alexander registered all of these things at a glance, but the thing that demanded his immediate attention was the swirling ball of soot-black smoke floating over the central table. It was darker that night with colors to match.
A moment after the door opened, Selaphiel pulsed with light so bright it would have blinded Alexander had it not been for his magical vision. His companions all shielded their eyes against the brilliance.
Jinzeri tipped his head back and cackled. “Destroy the tree,” he commanded.
The swirling ball of smoke seemed to expand as if awakening. It shot forth in a two-foot-diameter jet of blackness straight for the vitalwood tree. Despite its frightening speed, Selaphiel was faster. In a blink, he stood on the island between the tree and the demon. He raised his hand and a shield of magical force tinged with white formed a shell around the tree. The demon scattered as it crashed into the shield. Wisps of blackness slid through the air, reforming into a ball of thick black smoke.
“Flee!” Selaphiel commanded.
Everything was happening so quickly. Alexander couldn’t quite make sense of it all. He had no idea why a demon was waiting within the Wizard’s Den. Jinzeri had commanded it to destroy the tree and it tried to obey. From the brief conversation between the shade and Selaphiel, it was obvious that the vitalwood tree was far more important than Alexander understood.
“I have the nectar, My Love,” Chloe said in his mind.
Selaphiel spoke a word of power and a shell of shimmering blue-white light encased the entire vitalwood tree and a large part of the island.
“You will not succeed!” he shouted as he cast a bolt of light at the smoke demon.
Alexander felt a tremor ripple through the air as light met darkness.
Somewhere in the background of the chaos, Jinzeri laughed.
“You will have your wish, Shade,” Selaphiel said. From his outstretched hand, an arc of brilliant light reached out and took hold of a point in space before him. With a jerk, he tore the light away and the fabric of the world was rent, revealing a place beyond time and substance.
The tear in the world began to draw everything toward it.
“Quickly, My Love,” Chloe said, “we must take refuge within the Wizard’s Den or we’ll be lost.”
“Inside!” Alexander shouted above the fury of the vortex drawing everything into it.
His companions didn’t hesitate. They filed into the Wizard’s Den quickly, even as the vortex pulled on them.
Alexander watched the scene unfold from the threshold of his Wizard’s Den. The hole in the world sucked everything toward it, siphoning water from the lake into the emptiness beyond, sucking small stones and sand, tugging at Alexander.
The tree was protected by the shield that Selaphiel had erected, but everything else was fair game. The smoke demon was drawn into the vortex, swirling around the hole in tighter and tighter circles. Selaphiel had lost his form and was just a streak of bright light spiraling into the tear in the world as well.
The pressure increased and Alexander saw Chloe start to slide toward the door. In a panic, he willed the door closed and it vanished, leaving nothing but a wall where a moment ago was a passage leading to chaos. The sudden silence was deafening.
The turbulence stopped abruptly and Isabel staggered against him. He caught her, helping her to a chair.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, worry creasing his brow.
“It’s the darkness,” she said.
Chapter 26
Abigail stood in the ruins of Fellenden City. Anatoly, Magda, Conner, and Captain Wyatt and his platoon accompanied her. It was unusually cold for autumn and the sky was grey and bleak.
It had been weeks since Zuhl’s forces had sacked the city, but the stench of death still lingered in the damp air. Fellenden was a lifeless shell of what it had once been. The streets were littered with corpses, decaying or picked clean by scavengers. Rats ran freely through the city, fat from the abundant carrion. Buildings were smashed or burned out and abandoned. The few people they’d seen were hiding, no doubt terrified that the army responsible for such barbarity had returned to pick the bones of the city.
Abigail fought the feeling of nausea welling up inside her. She had been warned by her scouts that the city was broken and dead. Her advisors had suggested that there was nothing to gain by entering the city, but she needed to see it for herself. She wanted to have a clear picture of what she faced, who the enemy was.
The people, if they could be called that, responsible for such enormity were the problem with the world. Such an act of wanton destruction for the sake of power, without any regard for the suffering of others, was the reason the world was embroiled in war. Whether it was Phane or Zuhl didn’t make any difference. People who craved power and those who followed them were the enemies of civilization.
&nbs
p; Abigail thought about the events of the past several months. She remembered how many times she had quietly wished that her family wasn’t at the center of events, that she could have gone on living her blissfully boring little life.
As she looked around in dismay at the carnage scattered through the streets of Fellenden City, she was grateful. For the first time since this ordeal had begun, she felt a deep sense of gratitude that she was at the center of events. In that moment she understood her brother a bit better. He had reluctantly embraced his fate. She had resisted, supporting him out of love, but never fully committing to any cause other than the preservation of those she loved.
Seeing the horror that had befallen Fellenden, she finally understood the only just use for power. Power was good for one thing: crushing those who would kill for it. And that’s exactly what she intended to do. She looked around at the faces of those with her.
Anatoly wore grim determination. She knew that look. It was the look he always had just before he spun his war axe off his shoulder and stepped into battle. She understood completely.
Conner wore a mask of desolation. The people of Fellenden were close friends and trading partners with Ithilian. The two islands shared much in the way of cultural values and work ethic. He looked like he was trying to reconcile the fact that other human beings were capable of such malice.
Magda’s face was set and devoid of expression, yet her eyes flashed with anger. Having been secluded for so long in the fortress island, she was coming to see that Phane wasn’t the only evil in the world worthy of her wrath.
Wyatt was detached and distant, focusing on his duties and maintaining a vigilant watch on the nearby buildings for any hint of a threat to his queen. Even though he was doing a good job of hiding his feelings, there was a tension about him that revealed the turmoil within.
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