He stepped between them. “I miss your brother too. I wish I had been able to prevent what happened to him, but I failed him. We all did. By not being at our best and relying solely on Merlin to bring us through. It’s not all on him, it’s on all of us. We rushed into that fortress without properly scouting it from the air. Had we done so, we might have noticed the two enormous dragons hiding within, or the baskets lying behind the palace indicating recent activity. But we didn’t do that. Bleak over there hollered that we were in danger, and no one listened to him. We always plunge blindly ahead, never pausing to ask what might happen until it’s too late and we’re already in over our heads. We all have to do better if we’re going to make it through this alive. And to do that, we have to stick together and quit this game of throwing blame every time something goes wrong. I’m sorry about your brother, just as you were sorry about my father. And Kylee’s mother and brother. Token. We’ve all lost someone and the person to blame is not the mage who’s brought us together to help us save our world from destruction, but the person whose hell bent on raining it down on us. None of this would be happening if not for her. You want to blame someone, blame the Phoenix.”
“Personally, I’m going to keep going because to do anything else is a spit in the face of everyone who died getting us here. Melissa,” he called, turning his head to glance her way. “How much further?”
“We’re almost there,” the magician commented back, a look of surprise on her face.
He shook his head and moved in the direction her hand had been pointing, not bothering to look and see if anyone else was keeping up with him.
“That was hot,” Willow whispered softly, linking an arm through his and pulling him towards her as they walked.
He hadn’t flinched when she grabbed him. That was something.
“Lady, haven’t you gotten enough?” he asked, shaking his head with disbelief. His body was still slightly winded from the battle and the sex afterwards, yet she seemed to be bouncing joyfully at his side.
She leaned closer to him and whispered, “Never.” Then chuckled.
The trees abruptly cleared away and he stood facing a cliff wall that stretched high into the heavens. They had found their way back to the base of the Drago Mountains and the mouth of a cave sat directly across their path.
“I’m going to venture a guess that we found what we’re looking for,” he muttered as the others came to stand by his side.
Merlin looked at him and their eyes met. The mage nodded and gave him a grim smile. Tristan silently acknowledged him and began to step forward, his heart hammering now that their destination was finally within reach.
Melissa was hanging back and he turned to see what the sudden hold up was. She stepped forward with a hesitant movement, then motioned for the others to come to a halt. “The magical defenses we erected won’t allow more than one person to enter that cave at a time. I’m afraid that whoever goes in there will be doing so alone.”
“And you wait to tell us this now?” Willow asked, furious. “You think we’re just going to let someone disappear into that cave, possibly never to be seen again, without going with them to ensure their safety? Are you nuts? Why would you do such a thing?”
The magician took a step forward, meeting Willow’s glare. “I didn’t tell you because part of me never believed we’d actually make it here, that we’d have all the swords, or that I would actually give a damn what happened to any of you. But that has changed, and I do.”
Melissa took another step forward, her eyes resting on Tristan as she spoke. “The defenses we set were designed against keeping an individual person out. The Phoenix was able to retrieve the Book of the Dead because the defenses erected around it were too broad in scope, meant to keep everyone from finding it, and not really focused on one sole person making the attempt on her own. Well, we knew who we were defending Nimue from and that if the Phoenix did come here, she would do so alone. She’d never let anyone but her ever have a chance at touching the sword, lest they use it against her.”
“There are four tests that a person must go through in order to unlock the individual doors leading to Nimue’s chamber. Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul. The elements the swords represent reflect each of those tests and must be used to begin each one individually. Powerful magic was used to create these defenses and something that strong will not leave the individual doing the test unaltered in some way. Yes, there’s a chance that you won’t succeed, that you might die. And even if you do pass each one, you will be altered in some fashion by each test and the way in which you complete them,” she continued, focusing her attention on Tristan.
Willow tried to move between them. “Then why don’t you do this yourself. You created them, surely you know how to beat them.”
Melissa was shaking her head. “I might disable the test and make it to Nimue’s chamber, but she wouldn’t give me the sword. And once I exited the cave, the tests would reset themselves.”
“Why wouldn’t she give you the sword?” Willow asked stepping forward to face the witch head on.
Melissa chuckled. “Because I’m not pure of heart and only such a soul may ultimately retrieve Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake’s safe keeping.”
“Well that leaves out Reyna too,” Kylee suddenly broke in with a laugh and the black knight gave her a scathing glance. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, I saw what you did back at that palace. You took your time about it too. Don’t pretend you’re anything other than dark just like your armor.”
“I’ll show you dark,” Reyna muttered and Tuskar suddenly began to growl at the unveiled threat.
“Enough!” Merlin snapped. “Tristan, this is why I came to find you, why I told you that I needed you with me. You, Willow, and Kore are the only three of us with any chance of drawing that sword and as Melissa has just described to you, these tests may alter your body. Willow is pregnant with your child and I think we can both agree that she must remain out here at all cost.”
Willow’s face clouded over. “Now, wait just a damn minute.”
“Agreed,” he nodded, interrupting whatever she had been about to say, getting a severe look from his fiancé in return. “Kylee can restrain her if she has too. But she does not enter that cave for any reason.” He turned to his lover and stared her straight in the face. “Yes, Kore might be able to do this, but I think we both knew going in that it was ultimately going to be me. This is what I’m here for. I love you Honey, and I love our daughter. I cannot allow anything to happen to either of you. Please, stay here and wait for me to return.”
“I can’t lose you,” Willow whispered in horror, her arms reaching out and pulling him close. “I love you too much.”
He sighed. “I understand. But we both know that I have to go. If you want something done right—”
“Send someone else to do it,” she finished with a smirk. “If something happens to you in there, I’ll hunt you down in the afterlife and beat the living crap out of you.”
“Deal,” he smiled back, kissing her tears away. “I’ll need those swords now.”
Merlin suddenly laughed. “I almost said, your weapons, need them you will not, but then I realized you’d take me literally and no one would get it.”
“I got it,” Melissa sneered. “You are such a nerd.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t have,” he muttered, giving Willow one last embrace, then turning towards the cave. “Well, no use backing out now, we’ve come this far.”
The orc stepped forward and came to his side. “Kore go. Tristan stay.”
He shook his head and smiled at the towering giant. “I appreciate that, but it has to be me. If anything happens to me, I need you to take care of the girls for me,” he whispered, inclining his head towards the two elven women staring after him.
“I heard that,” Kylee growled.
After a moment of reflection, Kore simply nodded in understanding and backed away.
“No sweat,” he muttered, trying to work
up his courage. Richter was slung over his back and he held Madera in his right hand. Taking one last glance at Willow, he began walking before his mind decided it was suicide and made him turn around.
This is why I’m here. Through everything we have gone through, the sacrifices made, I have no right to selfishly back out now. I wanted a purpose and this is it. It’s time to do what I came here to do.
He forced himself through the cave entrance and into the darkness beyond.
II
Amysta kissed her husband and pulled him close. The King’s hands rose half-way up her back, froze, then lowered back down to his sides. He let himself be hugged, but he didn’t return it himself. She pulled away from him, then sent Revan a scathing glance.
“Erik, what’s wrong? Aren’t you happy to see me?” she ventured, reaching up to stroke his cheek. “I’m sorry that I failed. I was just not fast enough to catch them. They had too much of a head start. If you don’t think that I already feel guilty enough, then you don’t know me that well.”
The King shook his head, unsure of what to say and Revan cleared his throat. “His Majesty just woke up shortly before your arrival and he’s not feeling like himself at the moment.”
She took her husband’s face in her hands and forced him to look at her. “Who are you and what have you done with my husband? Don’t try denying it. I have spent the better part of my life with the man, and you are not him.”
“My Queen,” he stepped forward, trying to intercede.
“Shut up, this is all your fault,” she snapped at him and he bowed his head and held his position.
She was right, after all.
Erik stirred. “I’m sorry, I know that I should know who you are, your face seems so familiar. You almost look like her, you know.”
“Look like who?” his wife asked.
“Guinevere,” the Elven King answered with regret. “Yet I know better, she is gone.”
Hers hands went to her hips and she glared at them even harder. “Okay, who the hell is Guinevere?”
“The wife of King Arthur Pendragon,” he answered as the King uneasily took a step backwards.
The elven woman stood there for a moment processing, then shook her head in confusion. “What?”
“Amysta?” asked the Elven King, his face full of relief, eyes begging for news of their daughter. Now she was really taken aback as he stepped forward and tried to embrace her. “Oh, thank the Gods you’ve returned. Have you found Bella? Did you catch them in time? Where is she?”
She flinched within his arms and Erik’s eyes burned with the rejection he was suddenly experiencing. “I failed. They were in the Deadlands and I couldn’t go any further. I’m sorry.” As she told this to her husband, her voice had grown detached, as if not really feeling like it mattered what she said.
“I’m sorry Honey, I should’ve gone myself. Not,” he paused after seeing her glare, “that I could’ve done any better. I just wish I could have been there with you. She is truly lost then.” Erik said the last with a broken sob just underneath the surface. Tears had begun to form at the corners of the monarch’s eyes and Revan sympathized with his friend.
He had children himself, if something were to happen to one of them—
“My Lord, if the Phoenix had wished her dead, you’d already be burning her body on a funeral pyre. She wants her alive, and as long as that remains so, there’s always a chance of getting her back. We just have to find a way to make it happen,” he interjected into their shared sorrow.
“What have I missed? Why does my wife shirk from me? How long was I out this time?” Erik asked them, unsteady on his feet and aiming to sit down on a chair and relax his weary frame. “Why the hell am I so weak?”
He told him everything that had happened since the last time they talked and Erik groaned when he learned of the politicians being held as Phoenix spies.
“That is so not going to go over well when I have them released,” the King muttered softly.
The magister shook his head. “Kind of impossible to do without admitting they were right, Sire, and that you are unfit to be their King.”
“I’m back now, they will not dare move against him,” Amysta responded, pulling a chair up next to her husband and holding him close, as if it might be the last time they talked. Well, he understood that perfectly, because it just might be.
“The false accusation alone will cause a stir amongst the people. Not all of them favor your husband’s rule and will side with the opposition. The last thing we need right now is a divided nation. Not if we’re to survive the oncoming hordes or get your daughter back,” he told them, looking to get through to his King what he had only recently admitted to himself. The two politicians were expendable; Erik was not.
Erik shook his head. “I can’t let them be falsely imprisoned—”
“Sire, they called that council meeting in order to overthrow your rule. They are traitors and their loyalty has been established, and it’s not to you. Whether it’s true or not that they’re working for the Phoenix, Arthur’s moves were calculated and spot on for ending the controversy quickly. And he exposed a possible agent at the same time.”
“I can’t believe it,” the sickened elf groaned. “There’s no way she could be—”
He nodded, his own mind had been puzzling over it himself, yet he was inexorably drawn back to the fact that she did indeed claim the Seers showed Erik lying in his room sick and had lied about her involvement with the coo. “We’ll just have to come up with a way to test her, to expose her if she’s an agent, or clear her if she’s simply self-serving. Either way, we can’t just do nothing. Not with a war raging around us.”
Amysta sighed. “Agreed, I’ll get to work on that. I’d tell you to rest,” she told her husband, “but I think you’ve had enough of that and I’m afraid you won’t be there when you wake up.”
He had been thinking the exact same thing. “And I ordered food, but that’s when I lost you last time. Why don’t you keep him focused and talking and I’ll see about getting you both something to eat? He needs solid food if he’s going to regain his strength.”
The Queen nodded and stroked her fingers down her husband’s thinning arms. “You look so thin.”
He backed out of the room and left the two alone. Who knew when they’d be able to speak again and he didn’t need to intrude now that explanations were out of the way and she was aware of what was going on. He’d have Jarel bring them their dinner, he needed rest himself. A week of sitting silently in that chair, resting or not, had put a serious cramp in his lower body and he needed to stretch and relax his muscles, lest he end up a hunched over hermit relying on a cane to move around.
Shaking his head, he found the aide and relayed his orders, then pushed past and headed for his chambers. The entire affair had exhausted him physically and mentally; he needed a break.
III
The moment he stepped through the cave’s entrance, the air seemed to change. It felt heavier; like walking through water. After a few steps, it suddenly lessened and he was able to move more freely down the dimly lit corridor. He should have brought a torch of some kind, why hadn’t that occurred to him? He couldn’t make light just spring into existence like so many of the others he traveled with; he had to do things the old-fashioned way.
He didn’t know how long he traveled but he did notice that his surroundings had begun to lighten a bit. The air was less musty and began to take on a stale scent; like a room that hadn’t been opened in a very long time. The cave was slowly widening and he could now see a large cavern just ahead.
His heart was pounding. Is this where it started? Would he immediately be thrown right into these tests? Cautiously he made his way forward, eyes searching the cavern for any movement or sign of what came next.
The chamber was tall and there were air holes cut in several places along the roof. What little light he had came through those vents. There were torches fastened to the walls, covered in cobwebs and lo
oking too brittle to carry around. As he brought out his flint and steel, he wondered if they’d even light. The flames flickered a bit, but the torch held, and he hesitantly took it off its frame to light the others.
As the cavern came to life around him, he was taken in by the ancient yet powerful feeling that emanated from everything around him. Hanging from the ceiling was an old chandelier with hundreds of melted candles adorning it. How had it been lit? There were no ledges, walkways, or ladders that he could see. Did someone magically light them upon entering? Even then, how would they change the candles once spent?
Too many questions and no one to give an answer.
Along the walls were four very large fifteen foot doors with runes carved into each. The designs were intricate and in the center of each was the shape of a sword where the corresponding blade could be fit inside it. Above each was a symbol, and he knew by sight that they were the four elements, one for each door. They were positioned as if on points of a compass and he marveled at each as he walked along the circular room lighting the fragile torches.
In the center was a dais. It stood about waist high and along the top were more of the ancient runes. There were four depressions, each in the direction of one of the doors along the walls. It appeared that something fit into each. There was a raised statue in the center, of a hand holding a magnificent sword.
He wished Melissa was here to tell him what the runes meant, maybe they’d shed light on what he would be expected to do; he hated going into this blind. Taking a look around, he set the torch back into its former place, and started undoing the scabbards tied to his waist. Setting each one down on the dais, he looked at each door and tried to figure out which he would try to open first.
Heart, mind, body, soul, that’s what she said, each one corresponding with an element. He could only assume that fire meant heart and since he always considered that his strongest feature, decided it might be best to start there first.
He took Dragonslayer from the dais and walked slowly to the door with a flame above the sword. Slowly he lifted the blade and made sure that it was indeed the right fit. Then, with trembling fingers, slid it firmly into place.
Pure of Heart (the New Age Saga Book 2) Page 25
