by Tara Janzen
Aye, she’d lost a friend.
Or had Morgan been her lover?
The sudden question formed all too clear a picture in Mychael’s mind, and he swore to himself. He’d been ludicrously naive. He had known Morgan, and the Thief’s easy way with women, and Llynya was of age. Both Ceridwen and Lavrans had still been mourning Morgan’s loss when they’d left to go north.
The elf-maid must be mourning too, and mayhaps contemplating a foolhardy venture into the wormhole that would surely bring her death. Did she think she would find Morgan in there? His expression grew grim as he watched her pull the last pouch closed by its double loop and tuck the ends into her belt.
“There is no margin for error in a wormhole, Llynya,” he said, restraining himself from grabbing her and shaking some sense into her. “None, especially in the Weir Gate. No safe passage if a traveler missteps, and the cost of failure is higher than any sane soul would choose to pay.”
“You are here,” she countered, her chin lifting.
’Twas true, but she did not know the price he’d paid for his dalliances. Moira and Madron had seen the scar that ran the length of his body, an extension of the blaze in his hair, his gift from the wormholes.
“By the grace of God I survived, but I would not trust your life to the same. Nor would Rhuddlan. You know as well as I that the wormholes are forbidden to the Quicken-tree.” And there was the end of it. Rhuddlan had forbidden him the same, but he felt no compulsion to obey. He was not Quicken-tree.
“I am only half Quicken-tree,” she said, sending his unvoiced argument back at him with a hint of challenge, as if she dared him to gainsay her to do whatever she willed.
A fierce chit, aright, he thought as he rose to his feet, sure to give someone trouble. He’d been wise to avoid her up to now, and as soon as he got her out of the caves, he’d take to doing it again. No good could come from trailing after her. He’d meet someone else to kiss, someone who was not in love with another.
“And the other half?” he asked, handing back her dreamstone blade.
“Yr Is-ddwfn.” She stood up and took the knife.
Mychael had heard the name before. ’Twas another tribe of tylwyth teg, the same as Ailfinn Mapp, the mage Rhuddlan searched for, and mayhaps explained her pointed ears.
“Then I’ll make sure Rhuddlan also forbids your Yr Is-ddwfn half from coming below.”
“ ’Tis not so easy to forbid the Yr Is-ddwfn.”
“Mayhaps not,” he conceded, sheathing his own dreamstone blade in preference of the iron dagger, “but I’m sure Rhuddlan is more than equal to the task.” No maid, however brokenhearted and bent on self-destruction, would get past Rhuddlan. Nor would she get past him. With a gesture for her to follow, he started back down the tunnel.
~ ~ ~
Llynya stared after him, crossing her arms over her chest and bringing the warm crystal hilt of her blade close to her heart. Arrogant sapling, she thought, soaking up the soothing light. He had called her girl. She was Liosalfar. Hadn’t the truth of it been running down the side of his face? No girl could have cut him so well. No girl could have cut him twice.
Mayhaps no girl would have cut him at all.
There was a thought, was there not? Mayhaps she’d wounded his pride more deeply than his cheek.
They had not gotten off to a good start, but pride could be mended, wardings apologized for, wounds healed. Gods, since first seeing him she’d done naught but make her task more daunting. If there were another to whom she could turn, she would abandon Mychael ab Arawn out of hand, but there was no other. ’Twas either him or no one, and his trick with the wall proved him well worthy of better effort on her part.
Of course, he’d turned down her treasures too, proving he was unacquainted with the value of such things. Madron’s Druid had much to learn.
The archer’s blue light faded as he turned a corner, and she took off after him. She would not fail this side of her own grave in conquering the time weir of the great wormhole. Mychael had told her nothing she had not already known, neither of its forbidden nature or its dangers, and she was dissuaded by neither. ’Twould take another’s peace to steer her from her course—and the Thief of Cardiff had not found peace.
She balled her free hand into a fist to keep it from a sudden trembling. Gods save her, she feared Morgan was still falling. The sensation of it would come upon her at the oddest moments, visceral and fearsome, and change even the brightest day into darkest night. No amount of lavender could save her then.
’Twas because of her last fight that Morgan had been lost to this world, to his world. She had deserted him, left him to face the Boar of Balor alone instead of fighting by his side as Rhuddlan had sworn her to do. She’d left him to slay a hairless devil-priest, but the nightmare of Morgan’s falling had not left her. She had to find him, as much for her own salvation as his.
She caught up to Mychael at the end of the tunnel, and they stepped out onto the stairs into a flood of dreamstone light. Below them, Shay, Trig, and Math stood on the cavern floor with their blades held high. The joy she felt at finding them safe was quickly dispelled when her gaze fell to Bedwyr at their feet. The sight of the old warrior lying motionless in death nearly undid her.
There had been so much death of late, death and trouble and an unraveling of the threads of life. Time was when autumn had meant gathering the earth’s bounty for the long winter months of storytelling in Kerach—the Quicken-tree wintering ground. Summer had been a time of the sun in excelsis and warm, lazy days for doing what one pleased, and spring a time of glorying in the supreme magic of blossoms.
The glory had been short-lived this year, lasting barely long enough to greet the dawn of Beltaine before the Quicken-tree had descended into battle, and naught had been the same since.
~ ~ ~
They tracked the Sha-shakrieg for a half day deeper into the dark, hoping to catch them with Nia still alive, but such was not to be. The spider people had left Crai Force by way of a passage hidden behind the waterfall. The trail was rough-floored, cold, and damp. They did not blind scout, but kept their blueknives glowing strong and hot, forging ahead across ice-crusted pools and coming out through another sheet of water that poured from a hole above them into a damson shaft of cavelike proportions—and ’twas there they were forced to concede defeat.
A web had been strung across the narrow end of the shaft, a thickly spun obstruction. Trig approached it with caution. The others followed.
“What is it?” Shay asked, coming up beside the captain.
Mychael wondered the same. He’d not seen its like in all the months he’d spent in the deep dark.
“A war gate, the bastards,” Trig said, tight-mouthed. He’d been cut across the face and one eye, a purple welt attesting to the stinging lash of the spider people’s fighting threads. Other cuts marked his arms, and his hose were torn.
Mychael stepped forward and felt the web. ’Twas made out of wide, strong strips of material, darkish gray, tattered along the edges and not at all like true spider silk. The web itself was divided into eight triangular pieces put together and woven around and around with a double spiral. The outside edge was attached to the damson shaft by dropped loops, a sticky substance holding the threads to the jagged protrusions of amethystine rock. Four wide threads crossed all the others, three going straight from the ceiling to the floor and the fourth cutting diagonally across the three. Two thinner threads were knotted around where the diagonal and the middle vertical thread met.
Shay pulled a knife to take to the ominous thing, but Trig caught the boy’s wrist before he could strike.
“Leave it be,” the captain said. “Unless ye would bring the Sha-shakrieg up out of the wasteland to the very shores of Mor Sarff. From there ’tis but a day’s march into Merioneth, and they well know the way.”
“But what of Nia?” Shay demanded.
“Aye, Trig, what of Nia?” Llynya also asked.
“The two knots on the web are for
the two deaths,” Trig said, ignoring the hint of rebellion in their voices. “One on each side. ’Tis a sign of fair balance. They don’t mean to kill Nia.”
“So we just let them have her?” Shay did not sound willing.
“Not even a Liosalfar captain can pass a war gate without permission from Rhuddlan,” Trig said, not sounding any more willing than Shay to leave Nia.
Behind them in the cavern, Math called out, “Trig. Come quick.”
Shay and Trig retraced their steps to where Math knelt on the floor, leaving Mychael alone with Llynya at the war gate.
The elf-maid turned back to the web and slanted him a look. “I am not a Liosalfar captain,” she said. “Are you?”
Trouble and more trouble, he thought. He understood what she wanted. He understood why, but when she lifted her blade to the web where Trig could not see, he grabbed her hand and spoke to her under his breath. “Trig is right. We have one lost and one dead, and I would not have more. Rhuddlan will gather a fighting force, and we’ll return.”
Her gaze slowly lifted from where he held her, and her eyes met his through the jacinth light.
“You cannot keep me from what I must do,” she said, and he knew she spoke not of the war gate, but of the wormhole.
“I can keep you from this,” he said with utter certainty.
Her gaze slid to the thickly spun web, then back up at him. “Aye. For now ’tis best,” she conceded, and he let go of her knife hand. She did not immediately turn and leave as he’d expected, but continued looking at him as if she would say more. When she did not, he tensed.
She was thinking something, but he’d be damned if he knew what. Finally, after what seemed like a small eternity, she turned on her heel and left him at the gate.
He let out his breath. ’Twas the last time he dealt with her. He swore it. Whatever tears he thought he’d seen were long dried. Whatever concerns or imaginings he’d had of her had all been misplaced. She didn’t need a hero. She needed a keeper, but ’twould not be him. He would stay with the Liosalfar to the surface and see her banned from the caves, then would come back on his own.
The elf-maid stopped next to where Math and the other Liosalfar knelt on a smooth stretch of the shaft floor.
Her shadow rose above the others on the far wall of the cave, a slim darkness fragmented by the dreamstone light streaking through the crystals in a chaotic pattern. Only one place on the wall was free of the confusion.
Mychael lifted his blade higher, tossing light against the patch of darkness. Llynya knelt with the others, removing her shadow from the chaos, but the darkness remained. A crack or an opening perhaps? To one side he detected an unusual flat surface of rock, a chiseled plane, and on it mayhaps a mark.
The Liosalfar changed position in their search, and the entire rock face danced and weaved with the light and shadows thrown by their dreamstone blades. With the new patterns of chaos, the dark place disappeared. Had it been no more than a trick of the light then?
He tried to find it again and couldn’t. Still, ’twas a place he would remember and return to when he could.
He walked over to where the others knelt on the floor. In their rush toward the web, none had noticed the glasslike shards scattered across the water-smoothed rock next to the stream. This was what Math showed them, and ’twas what led them to the break hidden in the jagged peaks and valleys of the rich rock encrusting the rest of the floor.
’Twas why they’d come to the deep dark, to see if other damson shafts had broken like the one Mychael had found before the battle for Balor.
Trig muttered something under his breath and leaned forward to put his hand in the gaping crack. His fingers no sooner breached the surface than a chill ran up Mychael’s spine. ’Twas hard to see clearly in the shifting light of dreamstone blades, but he would swear a wisp of darkness tore away from the blackness deep in the fissure. It reminded him of nothing so much as the picture in the painted cavern, and like the graceful ochre deer and the thundering herd of bulls, he wanted to run. Another wisp tore away, and this time there was no doubt of its rising up out of the fracture. Trig let the smoky stuff flow over his hand, feeling it with his fingers. A foul curse escaped him. Math made the sign Mychael had seen Shay make earlier. The boy was doing the same. Llynya was motionless, staring into the new-fledged chasm.
Looking grim, Trig rose to his feet and eyed them one by one. “We’re three days past Lanbarrdein,” he said, “and must make it back in two. The Sha-shakrieg would not risk their lives to come to the deep dark and then leave without thullein. Carrying the ore will slow them down. With haste, we can return and catch them before they reach Deseillign.” His gaze shifted to the web, and his jaw hardened. “We’ll know then why they crossed the Magia Wall into the deep dark, breaking the treaty forced on them five hundred years ago when they lost the Wars of Enchantment.” With no more said, he raised his hand into the air, giving the command to march.
Math followed him out, then Shay. Mychael made sure Llynya went before him. She gave the war gate a brief glance, but made no more move to disobey.
At the edge of the waterfall, Mychael looked back too, his gaze searching the wall and finding naught. Then he looked to the seeping crack in the floor. A faint burnt smell wafted up from the fracture with the smoke, reminding him of the broken fireline when the old worm had come at them, for it bore a similar scent. ’Twas redolent of rot and decay, and the chill rippled through him again.
He turned and followed Llynya, plunging through the running water to the path beyond, knowing ’twas no good thing he left behind.
~ ~ ~
Deep in the shaft on the other side of the war gate, Varga of the Iron Dunes, leader of the Sha-shakrieg, watched the Quicken-tree leave. The Liosalfar had seen the breaking of the earth, as he’d intended. ’Twas far worse in the south, the tunnels there filling with dread smoke, the portent of doom, the coming of Dharkkum—unless it could be stopped.
Skraelpacks from Rastaban had passed the eastern edge of the Rift into Deseillign a month earlier. The same were ranging west, where a Sha-shakrieg troop had found debris from a skraeling encampment in the outlying thullein basin. The Quicken-tree would feel their bite soon enough and know the danger that was awakening.
The Liosalfar had an Yr Is-ddwfn aetheling with them, proving that old alliance still intact. Fair tidings, mayhaps, and fair tidings were in short supply this day, especially for the Lady Queen of Deseillign.
He looked behind him to where two of the company spun a death web for the Lady Queen’s youngest brother. Senseless loss. His soldiers were already talking of revenge, a sure course of destruction he would not allow any to take. There was but one enemy for them to fight.
On the far side of the shaft was the warrior they’d captured, a woman. Silver threads wrapped her from head to foot, except for the opening across her eyes and nose. Thus she watched, but could not cry out. She hid her fear well for one so young, too young to have known the Wars of Enchantment and thus too young to know much of Sha-shakrieg or skraelings.
Taken unaware by the Liosalfar stumbling into their mining operation, Varga had seized the woman more out of reflex than deliberation, but he’d quickly seen the opportunity she represented. Her capture would bring the Light-elves down on Deseillign in full force, and leading them into battle would be Rhuddlan, the Elf King. He would come to free the woman from the ancient enemy of the tylwyth teg.
Such a path was not without its dangers. The Lady Queen had not sanctioned the taking of hostages, and for certes not any Quicken-tree Liosalfar. She did not take kindly to those who would usurp her rule, and there was no one she hated more than Rhuddlan, the Scourge of the Wasteland, who had once sought to destroy her. Her hate went no deeper than Varga’s own, but he did see reason, and he saw Deseillign’s doom if they fought on alone. They needed the Elf King. For now was a time of need, when ancient bonds must be renewed, dreamstone crystal and thullein reforged, and the Magia Blade resurrected from the ashes o
f war.
Now was a time for dragons.
Chapter 7
The ragged band of Liosalfar came up out of the deep dark onto the sands of Mor Sarff, the subterranean sea, with no more than a day and a half having passed since the battle with the Sha-shakrieg. Black waves of the rising tide rolled up onto the shore and washed at their boots, dampening feet grown sore with the relentless march. They’d eaten little and rested less, pressing forward, knowing Nia’s only chance lay with their quick return.
Mychael was the last to leave the tunnel. By all rights, ’twas Trig’s place, but both Trig and Math had succumbed to the thread poison embedded in their skin within hours of leaving the damson shaft. The rasca they’d used to treat the wounds had worked but little against the wounds inflicted by the Sha-shakrieg poison.
Mychael had seen the captain’s first stumble and had not waited for a second before dropping to the rear to guard their retreat and urge the others onward. Thus far, no one had questioned the pace he’d set. Neither Shay nor Llynya had dared in his present mood, and Math and Trig had no strength for dissent. Only blind stubbornness kept the two of them going.
“Shay,” Mychael growled, gesturing toward the damson cliffs. The boy nodded and veered off from the group, holding his blueknife high to light the crystalline rock face. The cliffs began to glow a deep violet-blue, and soon they could see the pearlescent bore holes ringing the headland, eight in all, the tunnels to the gate of time, the entrances to the great wormhole.
The Liosalfar had stopped there on their descent six days past, checking the gossamer seals of ether Rhuddlan had put on the tunnels to keep the pryf from getting back into the weir. Except for the clew of golden worms that never left the swirling depths of the abyss, the pryf were needed in their nest, not in the Weir Gate. No dragon would come to an abandoned nest—so Rhuddlan had said—but five months of freed prifarym had brought them nothing but wildness.
