Ah. Right. His street gang. I’d forgotten that was where he came from. I made a quick wish that he wouldn’t go back to them once we returned to New York.
“All right,” I raised my voice so everyone could hear me, “We’re going to do what Jason suggested. Let’s spread out into small groups of three or four apiece. That should be big enough to not be taken by surprise but small enough to hide in among the rocks. Hop to it, everyone!”
Auraus took the mounts under her care again and made them disappear from casual sight on the other side of the cavern. Jason and I decided to join the Wind-rider as the others melted behind stalagmites and stone columns. He was the first to spy the broken, scorched, and blood-spattered battle zone as we walked towards where she’d hidden the mounts.
“Was this where you had that fight with that flying monstruo you told me about?” he asked.
I nodded and was about to reply when I was struck by the fact that something was missing. A big something.
The wyvern’s body.
I clutched convulsively at his arm. “Jason! Its–it’s gone! The body’s gone! Who–or what–could have taken that big of a carcass?”
I pulled him over with me to check out where the wyvern had been. The outline of blood revealed by the light of the magical torch was not smeared as if the wyvern had been dragged away, except for where Stalker had fed before. Nor were there footprints, paw prints, or any other kind of prints that I could make out surrounding the area, other than our own. It looked like the carcass had somehow been lifted cleanly off the floor without a trace. And that was impossible.
I paled. People, and now things, kept disappearing around me lately. Was I somehow responsible? Was my unwanted and unwelcome presence here somehow affecting the way the world worked the longer I stayed here? I looked up at Jason, and worry flooded through me. My heart started pounding in fear—what if he disappeared again? I didn’t think my heart could stand it if it happened.
“Chica? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Jason said, concerned.
I threw my arms around him and buried my head in his chest. He stiffened in surprise for a moment, but then he relaxed and maneuvered his arms up to hold me in return. He laid his head on mine, and I could have sworn he dropped a kiss on the top of my head as well.
“Hey, hey—what’s wrong?” he asked softly.
“Jason! Everything is wrong, that’s what! People keep disappearing around me, and I’m beginning to wonder if I am somehow causing it all! You disappear, then Heather disappears, then Arghen disappears, and I am afraid you are going to disappear again before I get the chance to tell you that I love you!”
We both stiffened then—me from the shock of saying that I loved him out loud, and him for my declaration, I guessed. I blushed hard. Well, he was right. I was just a silly sophomore in high school, and he was much more mature and nearly an adult, for Pete’s sake. But the feelings of comradeship and friendship that had been growing between us since starting out this crazy journey had matured into love somewhere on this latest adventure to rescue him. I wasn’t sure exactly when that had been, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t have to love me back, but I was glad to finally have been able to say it to him.
I dropped my arms and stepped back, breaking the hug. “Uh, sorry about that.”
The smile on his face that had been there slowly faded. “Sorry?” he echoed, a look of confusion appearing instead.
“Yeah.” I dropped my eyes to the ground at his feet. “I didn’t mean to burden you with that. I mean, I’m glad I told you because I’d been wanting to, but really, you don’t have to do anything about it. You can even forget about it if you want. You see ….”
Jason swept me back into a hug and lifted my chin up with his hand. “You loco chica, don’t you know that I love you too?”
Light and warmth burst in my chest at his words. “You do?” I asked with a quiver I couldn’t control in my voice.
He looked at me with a tender expression in his brown eyes. “I knew it from the time the avalanche cut us off from one another as the Under-elves took me to the Sub-realms. I despaired that I would never see you again; that I would never be able to tell you I loved you. These last few days have been some of the worst I have ever spent. When I realized it was you rescuing me, it was all I could do to not jump up and yell with happiness.”
I smiled. “Well, it’s not like you could have done that before drinking Caelestis’ vial,” I teased lightly, a huge smile on my face.
Jason bent his head to kiss me, but before our lips touched, a throat cleared itself nearby. It turned out to be Auraus, who smiled at us.
“I was wondering when the two of you would realize you have feelings for each other.”
I gaped at the Wind-rider. “What?”
“From the way you act around each other, it has been obvious to Dusk and myself, at least, for the last little while, that the two of you like each other more than just as friends,” she explained.
“Like you and Dusk?” I replied with a grin.
Auraus blushed. “Yes, well, our experience helped us to recognize it in you.” Her eyes strayed beyond us to the big outline of blood on the floor, and she startled. “The wyvern is gone?”
I blinked. The change of subject reminded me that we were in the middle of an escape. It wasn’t the time for exploring feelings just now. I nodded to her while letting go of Jason.
“Yeah, weird, right?” A thought came to me. “Could some predator have eaten it here, if it wasn’t taken away somewhere else?” I asked.
Jason snorted. “The area around its too clean for that. There’d be a lot more spatters if that’d happened, not to mention drag marks or something. And eating the skeleton and all? Not many predators I know of eat bone and the meaty parts.”
“Before you ask me, Lise,” Auraus added, “know that I am not well acquainted with the flora and fauna of the Sub-realms. I do not know why the body is no longer here,” she said, forestalling me. “Arghen might have, but he is not here. But as for Surface animals, I do not know of any that eat bones as well as flesh, either.” The Wind-rider got a far-away look on her face. “But I do have to agree with Jason’s observation that the area is too clean for a single predator, or even a flock of predators, to have eaten it up bones and all. Perhaps Bascom did something to it as he passed through here?”
That floored me. “Bascom? Why–how–no, ‘why’, I think, is the better question. So why?”
Auraus said slowly, “Bascom knows how to create magical potions. You have seen that first hand. Magical potions require both strange and exotic ingredients mixed with regular, ordinary ingredients. As far as I know, everything can be an ingredient. Perhaps he had need of wyvern parts to make something.”
Jason made a face. “Everything is an ingredient?”
“I do not know for sure, but it was an off-hand comment I once overheard from the full-mage that lives in Treestall, my home settlement, as he collected a package of rare herbs ordered through a booth at the marketplace. I do not know whether he was making a joke or not.”
I said, slowly and unwillingly, “You know, people are considered part of the animal kingdom.”
Jason blinked then looked aghast as he caught my drift.
Auraus looked lost, so I filled her in. “What if that’s what Bascom wants Heather for? To turn her into a potion that can stop magic, or let him see through illusions, or some sort of anti-magic something or other?!”
Auraus became as worried as Jason and me.
I looked at Auraus. “Tell me I’m wrong! Please!”
Tellingly, the Wind-rider did not meet my gaze.
“We’ve gotta go!” I cried, spinning about to head to the nearest group.
“Lise,” Jason caught my shoulder. “We need to let the caravan rest a while, or otherwise we won’t make it to the surface any time soon. Believe me, I wanna get going after Heather because no human deserves to be liquefied, but we gotta face facts here. Maybe Ragar disobeye
d and went after Heather after all, and can stop, or at least delay, that hijo de perra Bascom until we get there. Because you and I both know that Ragar isn’t gonna wait around like you told him to.”
I ground my teeth in frustration. Jason was right about the need for rest, and probably about Ragar as well. Now I worried about the mountain-cat-elf being captured and turned into a magic potion as well.
Auraus, seeing my face, said, “I do not think you have to worry about Ragar in that way, at least. Remember, Lise, that he was created as a present for Morsca. Why would Bascom use Ragar for components when he went to so much trouble to make a mountain-cat-elf in the first place?”
“Because Morsca is dead, that’s why!” I replied. “And since the reason for Ragar’s creation isn’t around anymore, why wouldn’t Bascom use Ragar in some way? Maybe there’s magic that can be tapped inside his internal organs or something! Ragar told us that Bascom said he would return for Ragar, remember?”
Auraus winced. “I had not thought of it that way.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do?” I pleaded. “Some magic spell you have that makes people rested, or that could pep us up, or do something that can get us on the road again?”
The Wind-rider looked sad. “Lise, magic cannot solve every problem. There are non-magical concoctions that can give someone personal energy for a while, but they do not last that long, and then the body crashes harder afterwards. And,” she said, holding up her hand at the look of hope in my eyes, “I do not have the necessary herbs to create even one such concoction, never mind as much as would be needed for a group this size. I am afraid that you will have to let nature take its course. Even praying to Caelestis will not help,” she finished, with a knowing look in her eyes.
I plopped down on the ground. “Fine,” I said grumpily. “I’ll wait, but I won’t like it.”
“You do not have to,” she said with a small smile.
CHAPTER 29
“Lise. Lise.” Jason’s voice said softly somewhere over me. “It’s time to go. Up and at ‘em, mi amor.”
I blinked sleepily. “What?”
Jason’s head was held somehow sideways over me, and my head was elevated on something soft. Realization dawned. I had fallen asleep and ended up somehow on Jason’s lap. Furious at myself, I shook my head vigorously to clear my senses and scrambled to my feet.
“Why did you let me fall asleep?!” I raged at Jason, who hadn’t gotten up.
He held his hands up, palms out. “Whoa there, chica! It just looked like you needed it, especially since you fell asleep between one breath and the next after you sat down. I caught you before you slumped to the floor and let you rest on my lap. I didn’t wake you up because it felt kinda nice.”
He smiled as he said the last part, and my fury drained away to be replaced with a warm feeling in my heart.
“How long have I been out?” I asked in a calmer tone.
“No more than a Dimming,” Emalai said, coming up to us. “We are all ready to go, Champion–I mean, Lise. Priestess Auraus said we should let you sleep until we were ready to go.”
I made a face at the Wind-rider, who looked unfazed by it. We had been busy for a long time, and I guessed I’d been running on adrenaline without knowing it. It was probably not surprising that when I’d stopped, I’d fallen over. I was still exhausted, but this was no time for me to be tired.
“No rumblings from the Chirasnivians?” I asked, stretching out the kinks in my body.
“Nada,” Jason replied, rising to his feet.
“And none from Arghen, either,” said Emalai sadly.
I sighed for that. But, realistically, Arghen would not have been able to outrun the Chirasnivians. The fact that neither they nor he was here meant either the tunnels were still being searched for us; or the military exercises were still going on; or maybe, if we were lucky, a full-scale search and upheaval was going on in Chirasniv because the Chirasnivian Council wouldn’t be able to believe that Surfacers had gotten in and out of the city-state. Or it could be something completely else. Any one of those reasons could be what was preventing the Chirasnivians from catching up with us, but whatever it was, I wasn’t going to knock it.
I sent up a small prayer of gratitude to Caelestis as I checked over the caravan to make sure it was in the same order as it had been before we’d broken up into groups. I received another weak mental twitch that was somehow tinged with exultation in return. Satisfied, I ordered everyone to move out.
Once again we started with, and kept up, a grueling pace. Not having really had sufficient rest from the catnap that I’d inadvertently taken, Stalker’s smooth gait put me into a semi-trance as we traveled. Some unknown time later I came back to awareness as shouts sounded. My heart pounded. At first I thought we were under attack from behind us by the Under-elves and reached for my saber; but then I recognized both the happy nature and the direction from where the shouts sounded, which was in front of us. Blinking, I found that we were in the trap area near the cave entrance we’d come in by, and that my mentor Dusk was kissing Auraus soundly at the head of the caravan. The shouts, it turned out, were the Grey Riders cheering them on.
An arm slid up around my waist, and I looked only slightly down from the saddle on Stalker’s back into Jason’s brown eyes.
“That giving you any ideas, mi amor?” he said, eyebrows waggling while inclining his head towards the happy couple.
A huge yawn took him by surprise, and he smothered it with his hand. I laughed, leaned over to kiss him on his knuckles, then slid down from the dranth and made my way to the front, taking Jason along with me. To my pleased surprise Ragar was nearby where Dusk and Auraus were. I dropped Jason’s hand and ran over to hug the mountain-cat-elf. Ragar stiffened in surprise, but then he relaxed into it and hugged me back gently. Even squeezing me gently, I felt the strength in his arms and marveled at it.
“I am so glad that you listened!” I said into his furry bicep.
He growled a light laugh. “You are the leader, Lise, as Dusk reminded me.”
I smiled a half-smile because that meant to me that he’d had to be told not to go to Bascom’s tower without us. Well, at least he was honest; I had to give him that.
“Did you get any rest?” I asked.
“I am ashamed to say so, but yes, I did. But only because that underhanded Miscere Surface-elf slipped something into the waterskin he gave me to drink from when I reported in about what I had personally witnessed and what you had told me had happened to you while in the city. I have only been awake for a sun’s degree or so.”
I hid a full smile. Trust Dusk to do what was needed to get Ragar to stick around. I heard a throat clear behind me, and, letting go of Ragar, I turned to see Dusk and Auraus standing side-by-side. I threw my arms around the amber-eyed Surface-elf, and he hugged me back just as hard as I hugged him.
“Well done, Lise, exceptionally well done,” Dusk praised after breaking off our hug to hold me at arm’s length in front of him. “But I have heard your task is not finished yet. I am truly sorry to hear of what happened to Heather and to Arghen. The Grey Riders will replace your mounts, except for Saffron, and replenish your saddlebags for your trip to Bascom’s tower. We will stand here as guardians to shield your escape from any Under-elves, if necessary. While you are gone, we will figure out some way of closing this entrance to the Sub-realms. In the meantime, drink this,” he finished, holding out to me a small, brown, boiled leather waterskin.
I looked at it sideways, and the amber-eyed Surface-elf laughed.
“Do not worry, Lise, it does not contain a sleeping draught like what I gave our furry friend here. What it does have in it, though, is a non-magical concoction that …”
“That gives energy for a short time but makes you crash kind of hard later?” I interrupted him eagerly, taking it from him.
He looked astonished. “Why, yes, it does. How do you know this?”
A tug on his arm and a meaningful look from the Wind-ride
r explained to him how I knew.
“It’s okay,” I said, quickly twisting off the cap and gulping thirstily at the room temperature, but wet, contents. “It can’t be worse than a cup or two of espresso.”
“Wait, no, Lise! You are not supposed to drink the whole thing …,” Dusk started to protest, but it was too late.
As soon as I finished off the waterskin, I realized the comparison I’d made was off. Way off. It felt more like I’d taken a handful of caffeine pills, mixed them with a large-sized energy drink, and drank it all on an empty stomach. My nerve endings were buzzing as I handed the empty skin back to Dusk.
“Oooh-kay, chica. You aren’t drinking that much of it ever again,” said Jason, peering at me with a frown creasing his forehead. “Your pupils are so dilated that the blue in them is almost gone, and you look like you’re vibrating in place.”
“I just need enough energy to get to Bascom’s tower, fight him, and rescue Heather, so don’t worry about me,” I said quickly to him. Turning to Dusk, I asked him just as fast, “You wouldn’t happen to have another one of those hanging about, would you? I’d hate to crash right when we get to the tower.”
The amber-eyed Surface-elf frowned but produced a few more—one for Ragar, one for Jason, whose eyes were starting to close from tiredness, one for Auraus, and one more for me. Jason sipped at his more carefully than I had while Dusk told me of his planned strategies for defense if they were needed. Ragar had told him how the trap worked, so he was going to use it against the Under-elves if possible—assuming that the warriors would not be privy to Council secrets such as magical trap passwords. By the time Dusk was done talking the sleepy look in Jason’s dark eyes had gone away.
“Are you staying?” I asked Auraus.
“No, I am coming with you. I would forever feel guilty and sorrowful should Heather have come to hurt and I had not been there to try and prevent it,” she replied, twining her fingers around Dusk’s.
“Good. Take a few swigs of that concoction, then,” I ordered. “You are just as tired as we are—or rather, were.”
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