by Tara Janzen
“You’ve lost your sticks,” he said, coming to his feet, as did Mychael,
“Even sprites grow up, dear Morgan, and if you saw the battle, you saw much of that deed. Before that, it was losing you into the weir that aged me so.” She glanced toward his chest, and he immediately understood. He’d lived with the mark too long to be unaware of it.
“I meant no harm.”
“And little enough was done,” she assured him. “Moira says the leaf was your sustenance and salvation. One small bit of green to nurture you through all the frozen years you spent in the weir. ’Twas a small price for me to pay to save the life of Stept Agah’s heir.”
“You knew?” Morgan asked, surprised.
“No.” She shook her head, and leaves fluttered to the floor. “Not until you came back through the weir with the Magia Blade strapped to your back. Madron says it is druaight, an enchanted thing, and it has not been seen since Stept Agah wielded it himself. The Blade will have to do for you, Morgan, for ’tis true what Mychael says. He cannot become the red dragon again.”
“Yet you will have my help,” Mychael promised, “and of any and all in Carn Merioneth.”
“Ahh,” Llynya murmured, brushing past the two of them, her gaze on the bed. “Your princess stirs, Morgan. Mychael, will you send for Madron and Moira? I would be here myself when Princess Avallyn awakes.”
She moved to the bed and rested her palm on Avallyn’s brow, bending low to bestow a kiss.
“Can you hear me, Avallyn?” Llynya said softly. “ ’Tis time to come nigh. Morgan awaits and all of the carn.”
Avallyn heard her name and Morgan’s, and she knew the lovely voice was right. ’Twas time to awake. The sleep had been long, an eternity turning in upon itself, over and over again, until this moment, when she should awake.
Yet there was peace to be had in the golden sleep of the time worms, and ’twas hard to let it go.
“Avallyn,” another voice called to her, a voice she knew well, and there was no denying that voice, Morgan’s. They had shared the wondrous, lush sleep through time. Where he was, that was where she would be—and Morgan was in the land of the awakened.
As quickly as that, she opened her eyes, sleep having lost its appeal if Morgan was not there to share it.
Her first sight amazed her, for ’twas herself looking down at her—except her hair was lustrously dark, unmanageably long, and filled with leaves, all kinds of leaves in all shades of green, from soft grayish greens to greens so deep they appeared nearly blue. Her clothes were shimmering in hues of silver and green, like the depths of a fast-running, moss-filled stream, ethereally beautiful. The eyes that gazed down at her were the color of ancient forests, and Avallyn knew she was in the presence of an earth magic mage, a green woman.
“I am Llynya,” the woman said, and Avallyn thought that she’d already known, before the woman had spoke.
“Llynya of the Oak and of Yr Is-ddfwn,” Avallyn said. “Your name and Mychael ab Arawn’s are forever engraved on the doors of the Court of the Ilmarryn. I am from your line.”
Laughter rippled up and out of the lovely elf, laughter like tumbling water. “Oh, aye, fair child. Thou art mine, of that there is no doubt. But the time has come to wake—for you’ve slept the day away, and Morgan says there are no days, or even any hours to waste. The path is open to the deep dark, and if you would save the world you left behind, it is there you must go posthaste.”
Aye, Avallyn thought, turning to Morgan. ’Twas to the deep dark they must go. The urgency of the task pulsed through her awakened veins, and when she looked at Morgan, she saw the same need in his gaze. To the deep dark they must go... and quickly.
~ ~ ~
Deep in the earth beneath Carn Merioneth, past the Canolbarth and Llanbardein, past the pryf nest and beyond the shores of Mor Sarff, in a little-known cavern, a thin wisp of dark smoke wafted out of a forgotten wormhole, one of the small holes the worms had made when the great weir had been sealed. All the others had been subsumed back into the great weir when it had been opened, but one time worm had missed the call, and that worm had continued to burrow and swirl and keep its path open.
The smoke curled in upon itself and awoke to a strange, disconcerted consciousness. It had a form... somewhere.
Tugging and pulling, it finally managed to drag almost half a face and two-thirds of a hand out of the little yellow weir.
It was enough. It would have to be enough. The rest of him was all smoke—which wasn’t right. He’d made the journey to redeem himself, to redeem the body the smoke was stealing from him.
And something else was wrong, terribly wrong. He smelled dragons.
By the powers of darkness, how could that be? How could he have been delivered into the hands of his enemies? He’d run himself into the ground to catch that last friggin’ worm as it had lighted upon the rich pile of chrystaalt.
Why? he wondered, his attention distracted by a more intriguing thought.
To redeem his body, yes, but there had been another, even more compelling reason that played along the edge of his memory. If he’d stayed, he could have given himself over to the darkness and annihilated his most hated enemies, all of them, every last bloodless priestess, except for... except for...
The thought trailed off, incomplete, leaving him with only a nagging sense of its importance.
He glanced around with his eye, and his half-mouth curled in distaste. He’d been delivered into a hole, and there were dragons about. He could smell their sulfurous breath and their wet-serpent odor.
He needed to regroup, literally pull himself together and make his plans. He’d arrived in the past. It was time for him to begin undoing what had been done to him. For that he needed a safe place, which most certainly wasn’t where he was, bound by dragons on one side and by... something else on the other.
A powerful something else. He sensed the swirling force of it, heard it calling to him through the deep earth, through miles of rock and dirt, calling to his dark, twisting self.
Of a sudden, he knew what it was: the friggin’ crud that had birthed him. Now the vile filth wanted the rest of him, wanted his cheek, the last bit of his brow, his one good eye, and his hand—which, for all that it wasn’t quite whole, still worked. He still had a thumb, by God. He was still of the higher order.
He had to escape.
Whirling around, he looked for a way out and found two openings in the rock. One led to water—and dragons, he feared. The other had a fresher scent and led to the north.
He took the northern route. Once on the surface he would find a place of power in which to hide himself and make his plans. He’d always been drawn to power, and power had always been drawn to him. He had always ruled and bent minions to his superior will. They would bend again.
Yes. Once on the surface, he would find a place of incredible power. It was there. Places of power were always there, waiting to be ruled by a strong hand—and, by God, he still had one.
Chapter 25
They traveled by Daur ship through the dark canyon of the Serpent Sea, their prow lit with dreamstone and the lanterns that hung from the yardarm. On a lonely shore where the sea turned inland, two Quicken-tree disembarked for Bes, the second rune of refuge. The healer Moira and a young Liosalfar named Pwyll were to make their way to the damson crystal shaft north of Crai Force, the cave where Stept Agah had been born, and where ten years earlier Mychael had seen a marker in the shifting shadows of the crystalline wall. The markers at each rune were the key to opening the hidden way to Kryscaven Crater.
Shortly after setting sail again, the sea began to churn, the chop rising with the wind blowing in from the west. Morgan stood at the rail and watched as great houndfish leaped close to the ship, cutting through schools of silver sandsmelt. Other fish could be seen farther out and all of them were racing deeper into Mor Sarff, pushed by the waves building behind them.
“The dragons will feed well today,” Mychael said, coming to stand by his side.
Dragons, Morgan thought, looking back toward the ship’s wake and balancing himself as the next wave broke aft. Of course, dragons. Naught could keep the beasts from the coming fight, and naught could save the houndfish and smelt they were herding toward the final shore.
As they sailed by the Dangoes, the captain ordered more lanterns lit, for ’twas here that Elixir, Dain’s black hound, known as Conladrian among the elves, had last been seen. But no hound was there that day.
No ice music rang out from the frozen caverns, either. The melodies, he’d been told, drove men mad and sent them to their deaths. No icy fingers crawled forth to pluck at the living, thank the gods, but the smell of the frozen dead seeped out of the cavern, even, Avallyn said, as it did in her time. So cold, the rot suspended in time.
In silence, they floated by the huge pillars of blue-green ice and cliffs thick with the frozen wash of waves. Even without the music, Morgan felt the eeriness of the place. ’Twas where Rhayne had passed so many years in transition, frozen in her tomb as the White Bitch. ’Twas not a place for the living to stay overlong.
The Daur captain dropped anchor close to the opposite shore and had the company ferried to a narrow shingle beach. Besides Morgan, Avallyn, and Mychael, three more had come along: Madron, the druidess witch he’d known in Wroneu Wood near Wydehaw Castle, and two Liosalfar warriors, Trig, a captain, and Math. Llynya had been left behind, not so much because of her condition, but because if the worst came to pass in Kryscaven, the Quicken-tree would still have a leader. Of course, if the absolute worst came to pass, there wouldn’t be any Quicken-tree to lead, or anyplace to lead them, a possibility Morgan couldn’t completely shake off and ignore.
The cliff face of the Magia Wall rose from the beach, streaked with great, sweeping scorch marks. Inside their blackened borders, the rock was stained in a rainbow arc of color. Other flash marks lower down were edged in vermilion.
“Vermilion is the color of Ailfinn’s magic,” Mychael said, walking over and placing his hand on the lower burns. “The Lost Five had all been together in Rastaban, and she brought them to Kryscaven Crater by this route. The other marks”—he pointed up at a large scorch—“were made by Ddrei Goch. You’ll see Ddrei Glas’s marks farther into the tunnel that leads to Ceiul.”
Their destination, Morgan thought, the last rune of refuge, where Trig and Math would stay and wait for them.
In the Dragon’s Mouth, by the first rune of refuge, Ammon, an old woman named Naas and another Liosalfar called Nia were waiting.
Naas was the most ancient living creature Morgan had ever seen. She surpassed even the High Priestess of Claerwen in age. He couldn’t begin to guess how many years Naas had walked the planet, but certainly enough to have come by a fierce sweetgrass habit. She chewed a variety called kel and was never without a thick wad tucked into her cheek. Besides chewing, spitting, and chanting at all hours, her most important task was to bring down the great wall of Carn Merioneth and return the land to its pristine state. Neither Morgan nor Avallyn had the heart to tell the old white-eyed woman that the Ilmarryn had dug it all up and rebuilt it as best they could, but Avallyn had spared her nothing in the telling of Corvus Gei’s future and the destruction he had wrought upon his return there.
“Nothing is without purpose, child. The past is always clearer than the future,” had been Naas’s gravel-voiced reply, before she’d gone off to tend the coals in her brazier.
Standing in the small company on the beach, Morgan looked up at the cliff and the marks blasted all along its face. He remembered the battle in Tamisk’s pool, the fierceness of the beasts, the raging fire of their breath, and he had to wonder at the price of success, if the six of them had a chance in hell.
Trig, the Liosalfar captain, was wondering as well. He remembered all too clearly the last time he’d stepped upon this nether shore. After the battle with Dharkkum, he and his soldiers had searched the caves for days, looking for Mychael and Llynya, and for Rhuddlan and his company, fearful they would find naught, and even more fearful they would find something unbelievably monstrous.
They’d all seen the druid boy shape-shift on the beach of the gates of time, had seen him devoured by Ddrei Goch’s flames and transformed into the beast. In all his many years, including the Thousand Years War and the Wars of Enchantment, Trig had never seen a stranger deed.
Hundreds upon hundreds of Light-elves had died in the caverns beneath Carn Merioneth during the Dharkkum battle, leaving the Kings Wood and Red Leaf tribes decimated. Half the Daur had been killed, with the Quicken-tree, Wydden, and Ebiurrane faring little better.
So much had been lost, and now these two, Morgan ab Kynan and Avallyn Le Severn, had come from the future and said they must relive the annihilation.
Trig doubted if they could—yet he’d come with them to do his part. He was a warrior by nature as well as fact. In all his long life he’d fought when the time had come to fight, and always he’d fought by the elf king’s side, Rhuddlan of the Quicken-tree, until Rhuddlan had been lost.
But the man Morgan said he and Avallyn had seen him, seen the elf king in the scrying pool of a mage in the future, and because they’d seen him, they’d traveled through time to save the Lost Five and Ailfinn’s book.
’Twas always a damned book, Trig thought. They’d been naught but trouble in all the wars, and the cause of many, if not most, of those wars. The books were power to those who held them. Seven Books of Lore they were, but Trig had long ago begun calling them the Seven Books of War. Nemeton himself had struggled to find and hold on to the books. Now Morgan and Avallyn said the books were to be their salvation from Dharkkum, from ever having to deal with the darkness again. Nemeton’s bargain, the princess had called it, and Trig had certainly lived long enough to recognize the powerful Arch Druid’s fine hand in their undertaking.
He looked up at the cliffs and the marks burned into the stone. ’Twas here they’d found Mychael and Llynya ten years ago, on this very beach. The boy no longer a dragon, but back in his own form. Both of them scorched and beaten, their clothes in shreds.
A year after the battle, Mychael had come to Trig and, finally, the whole tale of those dark days when they’d fought so fiercely had been told. Mychael had spoken of dragons, of what ’twas like to feel the beast’s heart beating as his own, to feel flames churn into being in his gut and have them sear a path out his throat; the sensation of flight, lifting off with the strength of great leathery wings—and the fury, the never-ending fury of a dragon’s battle-force rage.
And he’d told Trig what had happened to his king, how Ailfinn had led her company into Kryscaven Crater and called for Dharkkum, how the darkness had followed her and the dragons had pursued. The Prydion Mage had sealed herself and four others inside the crater with the enemy, an eternal living death their reward for leashing Dharkkum.
The memories had been hard-won, Mychael had said, dragging up visions that he’d seen through dragon eyes. Llynya had made it no farther than the beach, where she’d collapsed, so she’d not seen the sealing of the crater. Mychael wished he’d never remembered, for ’twas a haunting vision. There had been fear, stark, raving fear on the faces of men he knew to be among the world’s most courageous.
They’d deserved better, Trig had thought, his jaw locked in anger by the time Mychael had finished. Rhuddlan, and Wei, and the Welshman, Owain, even the damned Sha-shakrieg, Varga of the Iron Dunes, had deserved better.
So Trig had come with Morgan to free the four, and the friggin’ mage be damned. Mages were ne’er but trouble, as were their damned books. Always, they sacrificed good fighters for a common good only they could see with their damned scrying and divinations.
“How long until the dragons come?” he heard Avallyn ask Madron.
“Soon enough,” the druidess replied. “Naas has called them, and with the Magia Blade, Morgan will set them to their task.”
Their task. Trig grunted. Their task was daunting: to break the seal and hold Dharkkum at
bay, while freeing lost souls and retrieving the Elhion Bhaas Le.
’Twould then be up to Morgan and Avallyn to finish with the damned book—or for Dharkkum to finish with them all.
~ ~ ~
The trail to Ceiul led them deeper and deeper into the earth along a twisting path through stone tunnels scored and melted by the dragons’ fiery breath. Trig and Math were to stay in the rune cavern and not enter Kryscaven. For himself, Morgan didn’t see a whole hell of a lot of difference between being at ground zero and being a cavern away. Everyone was in danger.
They ate on the march, sharing gourds of catkins’ dew and seedcakes laced with lavender, Llynya’s recipe especially concocted to lighten the weight of traveling through the deep dark. Once he got used to the never-ending darkness again, to having their way lit only by dreamstone, Morgan didn’t find the journey too different from the time he’d spent in the Light Caves and the upper caverns. Trig, Mychael, and Math had all been beyond the Magia Wall before, and were hardened to the darkness. Avallyn, for certes, had been in far less hospitable environments. ’Twas only Madron who worried Morgan. For all her knowledge of earth and magic, the druid woman had never been so deep, and her anxiety was palpable.
Proving her unsteadiness, Madron stumbled on a smooth section of the trail. With a quick move, Morgan was able to catch her before she fell.
“Thank you,” she murmured, straightening herself back up. She was still a beautiful woman, her auburn hair neatly coiled at her nape, her eyes as green as any Quicken-tree’s. She had a daughter, he remembered, a mute lass named Edmee. Dain had told him that Rhuddlan was the girl’s father—which for Morgan explained why the woman was so determined to make the march. Mychael had revealed an even more compelling reason for the druidess to ignore her fears. She was Nemeton’s daughter.
