Treasure So Rare (Women of Strength Time Travel Trilogy)

by Grace Brannigan

  Knowing there was no choice now, Iliana lifted the large emerald from the sack, placed it in a small depression that now appeared on the ground. There were strange inscriptions and symbols on the gem, and it seemed to settle into place of its own will. Light now bathed them, a deep, soothing green with tiny spheres of white light.

  Gradually, the gusts of color settled, the colors moved in harmonious fluency with each other, and the churning red clouds changed to blue to compliment the sky. Then all became still.

  Iliana stared at Erik, and her son in Erik's arms, his chubby fingers reaching out as if to catch the little sparkling balls of light. William laughed, and laughed again, becoming excited as the light burst between his fingers.

  "The red sky is gone," she said.

  They looked down at the ground where the emerald sat half exposed. Gradually, the circle of trees around them retreated back into the ground, and little sprouts of new grass sprang beneath their feet.

  Now they saw the people of the village who stood around them in the courtyard, the wonder on their faces, no doubt a reflection of their own.

  "The curse is lifted?" someone said.

  "The power of the emerald has been given to us," someone else said.

  "Thank you, my lady."

  "You have saved us," Rowenna exclaimed, stepping from the crowd to stand beside Iliana. Her eyes lit up to see William, and then she dropped her eyes and stepped back.

  "Rowenna," Iliana said, "William being taken was not your fault."

  "But William was in my charge," Rowenna said painfully, still looking at the ground.

  "He used sorcery on all of us," Iliana said. "I know how much you care for William."

  Rowenna looked up, tears sparkling on her lashes. "I thank you for your forgiveness. The veil has been lifted from our eyes," Rowenna added. "We see you, mistress, as the one who has redeemed our world. If not for your perseverance, our lives would be as nothing."

  "Rowenna," Erik said, "do you mean everyone knows that Iliana is not her ladyship Graziela's sister?"

  Rowenna smiled at him. "Yes, my lord pretender. There is no sister."

  "Erik," he said dryly. "Rowenna, can you take William a moment?"

  "Of course." She took William in her arms and reverently placed a kiss on his forehead.

  To Iliana's surprise, Erik lifted her up into his arms and she placed her arms around his strong neck.

  "Is Sorenta about?" Erik asked. "Iliana needs care for her ankle."

  "I am certain Sorenta will be waiting for you," Rowenna said, and followed them inside as Erik carried her through the stone archway and into the great hall.

  Sorenta waited for them in the great hall beside the fire pit, a woven basket filled with herbs and lotions beside her.

  Erik put her on her feet and helped her to a chair beside the fire where embers burned gently. His hand lingered on her shoulder and she looked up, loving him, her gaze running over him. He wore a smile on his mouth but she sensed his worried preoccupation.

  Iliana put her foot upon a wooden stool and pulled the dress up to expose the swollen and bruised ankle.

  "It is a mystery you did not break it," Sorenta said, placing an icy lotion along the skin and then wrapping the ankle snugly with a length of linen.

  "Thank you, Sorenta." She looked around the hall. "It feels different in here." She smiled. "I do not see any of the witches."

  "Gone." Sorenta laughed. "You cast them out, did you forget?"

  "I did not forget."

  "They felt your wrath and understood the power you could bring down upon their heads. And now that the gem is restored..."

  Iliana laughed. "I am glad they are gone, but what power do I hold? It is only today that I was finally able to find the green gem."

  "You hold all the power in your hands," Sorenta said softly. "Never forget. Your course will be as it was meant to be, as you willed it to be," she added, standing up.

  Iliana stared at Sorenta, then she focused on the dragon tapestry behind her as it suddenly seemed to move. "That dragon --"

  "You never claimed your life tapestry," Sorenta said, staring at Erik, her head tilted knowingly.

  He shrugged. "I did not find it."

  "Even now as you look into its face?"

  Erik narrowed his eyes, then he too stared at the dragon tapestry.

  With a gnarled hand, Sorenta flipped the one side of the tapestry, showing the light colored threads on the back surface.

  Iliana clapped her hands. "Erik, it is the back of the tapestry."

  Quickly, he removed the tapestry from its pegs on the wall. Erik placed it upon the large wooden table used for the meals, and smoothed it with his hand.

  He studied the tapestry, his expression wary. "It is strange to me to see my life as a tapestry." He studied the finely woven threads, and Iliana could see the scenes taking shape. Suddenly, his expression became grim.

  Iliana gripped his arm. "Erik, what is it?"

  He pointed to the tapestry. "Dragons come this way, both large and small."

  Rowenna cried out, "But the curse is lifted, surely the sorcerer no longer has any power?"

  Grimly, Iliana said, "I have thought about this. His powers were less forceful when he first arrived. Now, having gained entry to the sacred circle, he seems to have otherworldly power."

  Erik leaned down toward her and said quietly. "I fear his power most likely comes from a pact with the devil."

  "How can we defeat this monster?"

  "We must best him at his own game," Erik said. He moved toward the open doorway and stood there, looking up into the sky. "A black cloud," he said grimly.

  "The dragons," Sorenta muttered.

  Iliana continued to stare at the tapestry. As she watched, a curious scene began to form. "Erik --" she stared at him, but he was busy securing the room. "Erik, your tapestry -- it is creating a possible future, something I have never seen a life tapestry do." She looked up at him.

  "Let it do what it will," he said. "We have more important matters to attend to."

  Iliana saw them leaving this place, but then the tapestry was pushed aside. "Erik!"

  "We have no time being preoccupied with that, I am concerned with here and now."

  Iliana agreed, but she wished she had been able to see the outcome.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thomas the carpenter and young Edward rolled the last wooden barrel into the courtyard. "Hurry, bring the barrels inside." Erik said. He looked up beyond the stone turrets at the sky now buzzing with the approaching cloud of dragons.

  "Once the dragons land, we're all doomed," Thomas said glumly.

  Edward looked at him with admiration. "Your plan will save us, my lord. I feel we have hope with you here. The barrels are a good hiding place," he added.

  Thomas scratched his head. "Or the well is a good place to hide, if you don't drown. They can't abide water."

  "Hmm, well, all I know about dragons is myth," Erik said, rolling a barrel in front of him toward the doorway into the great hall. "Tell me, do they also breathe fire?"

  Edward looked at him with wide eyes, and Thomas shrugged. "The fighter dragons? Nay, no fire," he said, rolling a barrel. "They'll just rip you from your toes to your ears."

  Erik lifted a brow but thought it wise not to comment. "The only room that may be large and secure enough might be the great hall and the cellars. Quickly get the women and children inside. They have already blocked off any means that would allow the dragons entry? Fire pits, openings and any access to the outside. Have the men who are willing to stand and fight report to me. They should be told we may not all survive," Erik added.

  "Aye." Thomas mumbled. "None of us may survive."

  ¤¤

  Erik felt they had made a good job closing off any possible entry by the dragons. But he still feared that like mice, they would find their way inside. Finally, they bolted the main door with a long iron poker.

  Erik looked around the hall, double checking for any o
penings that may have been overlooked.

  Iliana came up behind him, and he lifted William from her arms and held the boy, pushing the hair from his forehead, staring down into the boy's green eyes. "We shall come out all right, then, won't we William?" he asked with a smile.

  "Will we, Erik?" Iliana whispered beside him.

  Erik reached out his hand and touched her dark hair, letting his hand rest on her shoulder in reassurance. There was nothing else he could do for he did not know the outcome.

  The men and women who had volunteered to fight stood with their backs against the walls, warily looking all around, alert for signs of the dragons. Most were armed with wooden bread peels, and Erik stared at the flat wooden surfaces of their paddles. At the moment a loud slapping began at the heavy wooden door.

  "Erik, I fear they will find their way inside," Iliana said.

  "If they do, we shall only have one chance to stun them using the paddle. The barrels must be manned by two people. One to keep the barrel steady, and the second man to lift the barrel lid and drop the stunned dragon inside and then keep the lid in place."

  "Are we to capture the fiendish things then?" asked Thomas. "They'll slash our hands for our efforts."

  Erik looked around the room at the fearful expressions. "Unless you have a better idea, it will have to do. We capture them and trap them in the barrel." He looked at Iliana. "I would prefer you to go to the cellars with the rest, keeping the children and elderly from harm's way."

  "I will fight by your side," she said, and took a deep breath. "William and the others will be safer below. Let us hope it is over quickly. You know I must see this to its end. It is my calling to be here, after all."

  ¤¤

  The small but vicious fighter dragons flew down into the wide cavern of a fireplace. Some fell onto the flaming logs and turned to white puffs of smoke, others rolled out past the flames and disintegrated into a small powdery mound on the stone floor. Erik found it curious but conceded at least there were no messy carcasses to be removed later.

  The ones who escaped harm and tumbled unscathed onto the stone floor, were quickly stunned with the paddles and placed into the barrels.

  "They disappear in a puff of smoke," Iliana marveled.

  "They go back to the nether world from whence they were conjured," Sorenta said with satisfaction.

  Erik lifted a brow. "Devanesque created them with magic?"

  "Yes, and they overrun our world at his command," Iliana said.

  Suddenly, the room was swarmed by the tiny creatures.

  "Erik, the door!" Iliana cried, using her paddle to great effort as two fighter dragons flew in front of her. They fell to the floor stunned and Thomas quickly grabbed them by their tails and dropped them into one of the waiting barrels.

  Erik swatted another one with his hand. "Reminds me of times I engaged in tennis while visiting England," he said with a grin.

  "Tennis?" Iliana said, but Erik hurried toward the massive oak door, immediately seeing the fighter dragons as they squeezed in under the small opening beneath the door. He looked around, saw his life tapestry lying upon the trestle table, and quickly grabbed it and stuffed it into the space under the door.

  He swatted at the fighter dragons swarming his head, and then they bit into the flesh at the back of his neck. Swatting at the varmints with one hand, he came to his feet, staggering a moment as their weight tried to propel him backward.

  "Erik, be still!" Iliana cried, pulling one dragon and then another from him and dashing them to the floor. Erik grabbed the tiny beasts, one in each hand as they lay stunned a moment.

  "Here." One of the young lads pushed a barrel closer to him and opened the lid slightly and Erik dropped the two dragons inside.

  "Erik, you're bleeding."

  He turned to Iliana. "I am fine. Let us dispose of the rest." And even as he spoke six more dragons were stunned and dropped into the barrels.

  He looked around, satisfied the dragons for the moment had been captured.

  "That seems to be all that have managed to get inside," Thomas said cautiously.

  "Well, keep a close watch in case there are any hiding or lying in wait." Erik scanned the high ceiling, then looked at Iliana. He moved to her, staring with dismay at her bloody hands. "You were hurt trying to help me," he said. Gently, he urged her to the trestle table and a chair. He looked around the room. "Is anyone else in need of attention to their wounds? Sorenta?"

  "I have the healing herbs." Calmly, Sorenta sat beside Iliana and took over the care of her hands. Three others also sat down on the chairs, one with a slash to her elbow, a young lad with a bite on his ear and head, and Thomas with several minor slashes in his leg.

  "We were lucky," Iliana said, wincing as Sorenta rubbed an herbal cream into the cuts on her fingers and a slash on her palm. "It could have been much worse." Sorenta lightly bound her palm with linen. "Much worse. When I think of Ulrich..."

  "Aye, Ulrich paid a high price."

  "He did it willingly," Sorenta said. "He knew the price of defiance." She smiled and nodded sagely, staring at Erik. "You owe him a greater debt of gratitude than you know, pretender. He saved your son," she added softly.

  Erik frowned. "Yes, Iliana's son."

  "And yours."

  Erik stared at her and then he smiled. "Yes, I love the little one."

  Iliana gripped Sorenta's hands. "Wait. What are you saying?"

  "I am saying your child is also the pretender's child."

  Iliana stood and Erik came to her side. Her breath rose and fell quickly, as if she had run a great distance. She looked up at him. "Erik..." She shook her head. "No, how can that be?"

  "It is so," Sorenta said complacently. "Why question the how and why? Be content with what is."

  Iliana gazed at him with an expression of fear and love in her eyes.

  "It is very quiet," Thomas said from across the room, drawing their attention. He looked to Erik for guidance. "Could they be gone?"

  Erik wanted to pursue what Sorenta had so calmly stated, but it was not the time. They still faced a life or death struggle with Mandrak.

  Still, a sense of wonder filled him. His thoughts raced. William was his son.

  ¤¤

  Carefully, they lifted the iron bar from the doorway, removed Erik's rolled up life tapestry which was now tattered and frayed, and Erik opened the massive wood door just enough so that he could look outside.

  He pulled the door fully open, staring in amazement at the courtyard which was now covered by a fine white dust.

  Iliana came to stand in the archway, as did Thomas and the others who crowded behind them to see what lay outside.

  Erik stepped outside, then moved back quickly as an enormous wer-dragon flew overhead. He remained hidden from sight, watching as the dragon circled back, then seemed to fly a serpentine route, back and forth. A second wer-dragon joined the first and they seemed almost to be patrolling the skies.

  "More fighter dragons," Thomas cried, urging everyone to step back into the stone archway.

  As Erik watched, a blast of fire erupted from the sky, engulfing a small swarm of fighter dragons in the courtyard. Like snowflakes, white dust floated gently to the ground.

  "The wer-dragons are killing the fighter dragons," Iliana said in awe.

  "And why would they not?" asked Sorenta. "The wer-dragons are the protectors of the sky. They are taking back what Mandrak has turned black with his evil game."

  ¤¤

  Mandrak walked into the castle through the open gate. He narrowed his eyes, clearly displeased at the scene before him. "Oh, sad day, you have killed my loyal fighters."

  He then looked up to the skies and the hovering wer-dragons. With a grimace of distaste he waved his hand at them. "Fly off. You have dispensed with my fighters. Be off, I say."

  "No doubt you are next on their minds," Erik said, confronting Devanesque. He stared in morbid fascination at the rotting skin on the entire right side of the man's skull. "How th
e devil can you walk around a rotting corpse?"

  "A trivial concern," Devanesque said. "Surely you have more pressing concerns, such as your own personal safety? Shouldn't you be hiding like children within your stone walls?"

  "We have defeated you yet again," Iliana said.

  Devanesque brought his attention to her. "You should have an abundance of fear, my lady. Especially since you have something I want," he said softly.

  "It belongs to the people of Dutton Keep now," Iliana said, lifting her chin.

  "That was a pretty trick, distracting me with a lesser gem, even as large as it was," he said. "Now take me to the real emerald."

  "It is in its rightful place."

  He stared at the area where the sacred circle of trees once stood. "I think not." He strode toward the area where the green emerald now resided in the fine sand.

  ¤¤

  Devanesque stared at the green gem, its size more than he had ever expected, the brightness and clarity speaking of the power he could feel emanating from the stone. He stood still, letting the energy flow into him, the purity of its power a siren call that had beckoned him across time. He studied the intricate symbols etched across its surface, leaned down on one knee to trace the ancient carvings. Sparks flew from the stone to his hand and traveled up his arm, forcefully jolting him and then pushing him back as if a giant hand had shoved him.

  "It speaks to me. I must have it for my own. I am meant to have it," he said feverishly, advancing once more to where the emerald lay embedded in the sand, only to be thrown backwards again by an unseen force.

  He turned to Lady Iliana. "What have you done?" he demanded.

  "The stone knows where it belongs," the old witch said, and he spun to face her.

  "The emerald goes where the power feeds it the most," he said. "I can give it unlimited power to feed upon. It will not be content in this dreary place." He carefully brushed the sand from the edges of the stone. Its glorious sparkle drew him to lean closer. Suddenly, he could see himself swimming in the stone, as if swimming in the sea when he had once fled from LaTour's ship. The demons of the depths had saved him then. Aye, he had sold his soul not once but twice, and in return the riches of the universes were opening to him more every moment.