by Renee Wildes
“So Pryseis is trapped, and Benilo as well,” Brannan said. “We should rescue them.”
Dax cleared his throat. “There’s a pool atop Crystal Mountain which gives the faeries their strength. If Pryseis doesn’t get back within seven sunrises, she’ll weaken and fade. She’s been gone three already. Who kens but being underground, away from the air and sunlight, might hasten the process? We must go back.”
Minister Anika nodded. “He speaks the truth about the faeries, their need for the sun and their pool.”
Lord Elio shook his head. “Mount a rescue into the heart of goblin territory? That would take an invasion, and I cannot see King Loren risking another war for the sake of two people.”
“He won’t,” the redhead agreed.
“But they shall die!” Brannan’s voice shot up a full scale. “We must help.”
“Mayhaps Benilo can find a way to help Pryseis,” Pahn suggested.
Minister Anika appeared to waver betwixt consideration and doubt. “The king shall take it under advisement. Finish thy meal, lads. We shall return.”
Everyone but Brannan filed out. Dax resumed eating whilst Brannan paced. “We cannot leave them out there alone,” the elven healer said.
“I delivered my message, and intend to return…unless you plan on holding me prisoner?”
“Nay.” Brannan shook his head. “You are no prisoner, messenger. You may leave when you wish. The barrier works against entering, not leaving.”
What a relief. He’d not been looking forward to that again.
“Have you been there?” Brannan asked. “The goblin lands?”
Dax nodded. “They live underground, in caves. The clans have separate territories they guard. Small flying animals called bats warn of intruders. There are traps, and in the winding tunnels ’tis easy to get turned around and lost. Now they have a poison.”
“I wish I could get my hands on that poison,” Brannan confessed. “Mayhaps we could make an antidote. None save Benilo has experience with it, and he is the one missing. I would not advise you going back. They could get you again, and any repeated exposure would be far worse. Tissue which has been damaged and healed is more vulnerable the next time.”
“I’m not leaving her out there,” Dax growled.
“I did not think you would.” Brannan’s tone brightened. “I could go with you. I could collect a sample of that poison, and we could rescue Pryseis and Benilo at the same time. Two would be easy enough to move…and hide.”
“How?” Dax was skeptical.
“With this.” Brannan produced a vial from the folds of his green velvet robes. “I found the recipe in Queen Dara’s Book of Spells. It is a nullifier potion. It makes one undetectable to psychic senses, which means they shall not be able to track us except physically.”
The implication the elves possessed an ability which hid someone from power was sobering. “What elven magic is this?” Dax demanded.
Brannan shook his head. “Not elven. Dragon. That red-haired woman was Queen Dara.”
So, the tales of dragons returning were true. The tales of their sensual allure were true. Lusting after another man’s wife, an enemy queen at that, was not a happy thought. Dax tore his mind back to the problem at hand. “How long does it last?”
“A few days. I shall go pack. We shall wait until they make their decision, but I already ken they shall decline.”
“Pryseis thinks if they don’t cure the child, the madness shall spread,” Dax argued. “War shall come whether your king wishes it or not, starts it or not.”
“I agree, which is why I am coming with you. I have all kinds of handy potions I can bring with us. I am a healer in my own right. Just in case.”
Dax considered. “Get what you need.”
“Rest whilst you can. When we leave, it must be fast. I want as much distance as possible betwixt us and them afore we are discovered. We are a ways from the palace, so they shall not return for a time.” Brannan left, and Dax heard the bolt slide into place again.
Dax lay on the bed, forcing himself to relax and drift off into a nap. His eyes opened as the bolt rattled and Lord Elio came in with Minister Anika and Pahn.
“The king has declined your request. The risk far outweighs the reward.”
“Your healer’s life means naught to you?” Dax snarled. “You condemn both of them to death.” He glared at Pahn. “You ken what the goblins shall do to them.”
Pahn paled. Minister Anika rested a hand on her shoulder. “Cease. Benilo would not trade the lives of his countrymen for his own. He kenned the risk, and he is not yet dead.”
But Pryseis soon would be. “Then I go alone.”
Lord Elio nodded. “We shall escort thee to the border.”
’Twas still dark when they exited the building, but Dax sensed morning was not far off. He’d lost an entire day. What happened to Pryseis? Where was Brannan? How would he find the healer? They met few on the road to the guard post. The barrier glowed in the distance. He shivered as they approached and clung to Brannan’s reassurance it wouldn’t hurt when he left.
“We can restock thy weapons and supplies at the guard station,” Lord Elio said.
What if they could track him through a bespelled weapon or foodstuffs? “I’ll be fine.”
Minister Anika’s mouth twitched, but said naught further on the subject as she handed Pryseis’ amulet back to Dax.
“You’re making a grave mistake if you ignore this.” Dax issued a final warning as he placed the silver chain around his neck and then turned and faced the barrier. Taking a deep breath, deciding he had to trust someone and Brannan was the one who’d helped him thus far, he strode through the Light. Icy spiders crawled over his skin as he passed, but compared to the earlier effect ’twas child’s play. The raven swooped down onto his shoulder from the Shadowlands side. Where had she been?
“Farewell, messenger,” Minister Anika called.
Dax strode off toward the tree line, where a cloaked and shadowed figure waited amidst the ferns.
Chapter Five
Dax was dead. Pryseis choked down a howl that caught in her throat and blinked away stinging tears. The last of her kin gone in a heartbeat of treachery. Grief. Rage. The aunt wrestled with the faerie. She just wanted to help the child. Had it been worth it? As she’d feared, her quest had gotten Dax killed.
’Twas her fault.
Darkness. So thick it pressed against her chest, constricted her lungs until she could barely draw breath. She kenned ’twas naught but her imagination—surely these tunnels had traversed the earth for centuries, so worn was the way—but still she fought to shake the impression of the walls closing in on her. The ceiling descending…
Stars, she missed the sun.
Seldom was there sufficient room to walk. Her forward motion consisted of crawling, sometimes on her knees and sometimes wormlike, on her belly. She had mud in her hair, in her mouth. The sticky red kind which coated every conceivable surface with its unrelenting mineral tang. Pryseis had assumed it would be smooth, even slippery, going. However, invisible grit worked its way under the chains until every motion was pure agony. Her wings burned. If the goblins would but free her hands, she’d have a modicum of dignity in movement. But nay. They dragged her along to make her way as best she could.
An eerie hissing, moaning sound roared through the tunnels at odd intervals. A part of her rationalized it was wind blowing in from somewhere, but it added a creeping sense of horror that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck and imagine eyes at every juncture.
Dax was dead. She took a deep, shuddering breath. Then another. As her vision cleared she realized ’twasn’t as dark as first she’d thought. The walls, wherever they weren’t coated with the all-pervasive mud, glowed a dim green. Enough light to see the shadows of juts and crevices in the rocks, enough to make her way.
Enough to see a glowing white insect with way too many limbs skittering overhead.
She cringed. Please don’t fall
on me. Mayhaps there were advantages to darkness, to not seeing what was there.
Dax was dead. The litany in her head refused to go away. She was alone.
Nay. Sky blue eyes flashed in her mind. Warm. Steady. Comforting. The elven spirit healer. Benilo. Their connection surprised her. But she clung to that brief reassurance now. He’d come to help the child. If she failed, if she died, there was another.
Since when had she become so defeatist? Pryseis shook herself back to sense. She stared at the goblin in the lead. The black sorcerer, with that ominous staff of power clutched in his gnarled hands. What were his powers? Was he somehow amplifying the magnitude of her grief and rage?
What if he was doing the same to the child’s nightmares? To what end?
Think, Pryseis, think…
They crawled past a pool inhabited by ghostly white fish with no eyes. She shuddered. Lost, she was lost in a nightmare world of earth and darkness.
Earth. Air. Fire. Water. All four elements—the essence of a spirit healer. She was surrounded by earth—a drop of water dripped onto her forehead and slid down her nose—and water. She blinked it away, considering. Their connection had started with a dream. She hoped, for a brief echo in waking hours, that he sensed her. Could track her. She focused on that faint lingering echo and pictured her crystal butterfly. The one thing of hers that he’d recognize.
She held the image in her pounding head. Feigning exhaustion, she ceased slithering forward. Gasping for air, she groaned and leaned against the solid rock wall. Pressed her head into the mud—what was a little more mud? The clinging quality might come in handy for what she intended. Crystal butterfly with amethyst wings…a flare of recalled passion…hold it. Don’t let it go. Keep it for the one who follows.
Come to me. Follow me. Find me.
The earth was solid. It endured. It should hold the imprinting for a time.
The goblin behind her prodded her forward with a guttural curse. She resumed crawling. At last they reached a tunnel where she could stand, and she unfolded her body with a groan, stretching cramped muscles. With all the twisting and turning, the lack of light, ’twas impossible to tell how far they’d traveled. That eerie green glow revealed the sharp, sneering faces of her captors. The little bandy-legged hunchbacks were quick, nimble and strong. They’d hauled her up a chimney earlier as if she weighed naught. She studied their weapons—long knives or short swords, depending on one’s point of view, tiny daggers, and bows with those lethal green-fletched black arrows.
Poison arrows.
Dax was dead.
Enough! Unless you wish to join him, pay attention, she ordered herself. A goblin approached, offered her water. Grateful for the small kindness, she drank. If they wanted her dead, she would be already. As long as she lived and breathed, there was hope. He kenned she was down here. She must remember that.
The sorcerer strode over to her, glaring at her with his one good eye. The right one was a milky blue, overlarge in the side of a dark face bisected by a long jagged scar from forehead to chin. He snapped something incomprehensible at her, stabbed her in the shoulder with one bony finger hard enough she staggered. It sounded accusatory, but of what?
Why did she ken him in the dreams but not now?
Pryseis shook her head, frustrated. “I don’t ken what you’re saying.”
He growled at her, raked her with a searing glance of utter contempt and stomped off down the corridor. Lovely. They couldn’t ken her either. What hope did she have of the child doing so?
She studied the room—floor, walls, ceiling. The ceiling looked different. Softer.
One of her captors noted where her gaze had come to rest. With a piercing cry, he picked up a stone and flung it against the velvety ceiling. It exploded in a whirling mass of small furry creatures with leathery wings. One brushed her hair, close enough for her to see razor sharp teeth and tiny fangs. Pryseis screamed and flung herself to the ground. The goblins laughed, a wheezing bray, clutching their sides and commenting amongst themselves.
A hand grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, jostling the chains which scraped painfully across her delicate wings. The sorcerer. Her skin crawled at the darkness, the malevolence in his touch. He snarled something dire at his underlings and they sobered. He shoved her forward and they continued on. Pryseis stopped as often as she dared to rest against the wall. They didn’t seem to notice anything untoward, although they probably made uncomplimentary remarks on her faerie weakness. She didn’t care what they said of her so long as she could continue to mark their trail and not be caught at it.
It got warmer as they descended. Steam rose from a vent in the ground and, to her utter horror, the first goblin leaped into it and disappeared. She pictured a boiling cauldron awaiting her at the bottom. Don’t be a fool, she ordered herself. Would they jump into a boiling cauldron? She shook her head, disgusted with her own fear, and took a deep breath. Approaching the edge, she noticed the steam rose up yet another chimney, but she saw bare, sandy rock at the bottom. The goblins scrambled down the shaft with ease. Their agility was amazing, leaping from rock to stone, clinging to the sides with froglike stickiness.
She raised her hands as far as she was able and turned to the sorcerer. “Please. Take them off so I can climb down myself.”
He shook his head, and everyone left grabbed a section of chain as he pushed her over the edge. One of the binding chains shifted, tearing her left wing. She choked on a cry of pain as she slammed into the rock face and descended with breathtaking speed. The ground rushed up to meet her, but she jerked to a halt a mere hands-breadth away. The chains bit into her wrists and the jagged tear in her wing lengthened. This time she couldn’t silence the sob. Blood dripped onto the ground beneath her feet as the rest of the topside goblins joined her.
How would the injury affect her wing’s ability to collect sunlight?
Struggling to breathe through a stinging mist of tears, she looked around her. The steam came from a hot spring to the right. Beyond it stretched a massive room filled with small groups of goblins at a variety of tasks. They all stopped what they were doing to stare at her. She counted thirty, all naked, both males and females and many that appeared neither. Small gatherings of possessions separated at even intervals across the expanse of the room. Some washed bedding whilst others ground some kind of meal in a large communal stone bowl. A few practiced with weapons. There were but a few children and one pregnant female.
The sorcerer barked a command and everyone resumed what they were doing. He dragged Pryseis forward to a central pillar and chained her to it with an ankle cuff. Only then did he remove all the other chains. For the first time in hours, Pryseis could move freely. She rubbed her cramped and numb arms into stinging awareness and fluttered her wings to assess the damage. The rush of air told her the tear went completely through. Warm blood trickled down to drip onto the ground. None of the major blood vessels were affected, so the bleeding would stop soon enough. But the knifing pain was excruciating.
To take her mind off it, she looked around at her new home. Her prison. The ceiling was covered with more of those furry winged creatures, a seething velvety mass. She shuddered. The room itself possessed a stark grandeur with its immense size, high vaulted ceiling and the majestic columns. Some were unfinished, stone icicles hanging from the ceiling or stabbing upward from the ground in sharp points. The range of colors startled her—creamy white to gray to tan to a deep rusty red. Stripes and swirls. Almost beautiful. All tinged with a light which glowed that eerie green. Intermittent splashes of gold brightened the room. She’d seen none in the tunnels, but here in the living quarters, it dotted the walls on the far side, farthest from the spring, almost as if it hid from the steam.
The steam curled up from the hot spring, a living entity undulating its way up the chimney…back toward freedom. The salty, mineral tang permeated every breath she took. Steam. Mud. Goblins. The creatures emitted a damp, loamy odor reminiscent of frogs or salamanders. But they we
ren’t so different from her. Two arms, two legs, two ears. They breathed air and drank water. They had children, and worked together.
Focus on the similarities, not the differences.
The pregnant goblin female approached, pendulous breasts swinging as she walked. Pryseis’ cheeks heated as she tried not to stare. Don’t be foolish, she chided herself. So they don’t wear clothes. The female offered her a cup of water. It tasted of minerals and held a hint of a rusty red color, but refreshed all the same.
She glanced at the hot spring. If only her captors would permit a bath. She couldn’t stand the gritty sensation which clung to her skin. Pantomiming, she pointed to the hot spring, rubbed her face and arms, wrung out an imaginary cloth. The female shot a cautious, fearful glance to where the sorcerer conversed with others. But then her gaze met Pryseis’ and she nodded.
Pryseis waited whilst a tub was dragged within reach and buckets of steaming mineral water were hauled to fill it. The female brought a small washrag and a larger piece of cloth Pryseis presumed to be for drying. No soap. It was coarse cloth, roughly and inexpertly woven. Where had the goblins gotten the wool or the thread? Pryseis saw no spinning wheel, nor loom. Did they trade…or steal?
The female goblin indicated Pryseis should strip and get in the tub. Pryseis glanced around her exposed location. They expected her to bathe in public. She gulped when her benefactress made an impatient sound and moved to help her. Her clothes were filthy, sticky with mud and reeking of mold and minerals. Mayhaps she could wash them after herself. She wriggled out of her tunic, easing it over her injured wing. One of the wing-slits in the back of the tunic caught the ragged edge of her wing, and she choked on a whimper. The goblin female examined the injury and clucked as she took Pryseis’ dirty tunic.
Pryseis swallowed hard as she noticed everyone watching her. A group of the neither-goblins made their way to encircle her. With no outward genitalia, they appeared disconcertingly unfinished. She crossed her arms over her breasts at their avid regard. The sorcerer watched from afar, but didn’t approach. The pregnant female tugged at Pryseis’ breeches and barked an order. There was no way to preserve modesty. Her need for a bath overruled her shyness. After all, the goblins themselves wore naught. She couldn’t look that different from their females. She glanced at her sole ally. Well, Pryseis was paler and thinner—and more upright—but other than that, female was female.
