Two soldiers scrambled to meet her.
“I’m sorry, Lorness. Our orders are not to let anyone in or out until the shift change at eight o’clock,” said the larger of the two.
“Has any order like that ever applied to me?” she asked.
The soldier paused. “No, but—”
“Then open the damned gate now!” The soldiers stepped backward.
“But—”
“I said now!” Her voice echoed between the canyon walls.
“Yes, Lorness,” the soldier said.
He turned to yell at his compatriots inside the guardhouse. “Lower the drawbridge.”
When the far end of the bridge reached the ground, Carol raced down Areana’s Gorge at full speed. As she exited the canyon, she slowed to a gentle canter. There was little chance that anyone would try to catch her. Her father would be furious about her leaving at such an hour, but there was little he could do about her decision.
The morning was still young when Carol brought Storm to a halt outside the slit in the wall that led into the valley of the Kanjou.
Dismounting, Carol hobbled Storm and set her saddle and bridle under a tree. Then she turned and walked into the fissure. She emerged on the far side and headed toward the rope ladder that led to Dan’s house. The workers in the fields showed no signs of anything out of the ordinary having occurred. They were used to Carol’s arrivals and did not pause from their work.
She climbed the ladder, taking in the area when she reached the rock ledge. Seeing no sign of the protectors, she made her way to Dan’s house and knocked on the door. Kira opened it, and Carol stepped past her into the room. Dan, who was sitting on one of the cushions, looked up in surprise.
“Listen to me,” Carol said. “I don’t have time for you to ask me how I know this or for you to argue with me. I came to tell you that Katya is in great danger from the ones you call the protectors. I believe they were responsible for the serious injury of one of my father’s top rangers and the death of his companion. You must come with me quickly. I will take you and your family to Areana’s Vale, where you will be safe, and then my father will deal with these criminals.”
“How perceptive of you,” said a deep voice from her right.
Carol spun to see one of the priests step from the shadows. She raced toward the open door, but something struck her, sending her flying. As she bounced off the rock wall and tumbled to the floor, a faint red mist swirled. Then everything went black.
Distant voices mumbled, gradually gaining clarity. Damn it. Why couldn’t they let her sleep? Then her memory returned, jerking her back awake. Carol was in a small room. Where exactly, she couldn’t tell. But she was standing. Now that was odd. She couldn’t remember getting up.
From her right, she heard Darl’s voice.
“Are you all right?”
“I think so. My head hurts.”
She tried to turn to look at Darl but found that she could not. In fact, she could not move anything but her eyes. She looked downward to see how she was bound, and gasped. She was suspended in the air a pace off the ground. No ropes held her. Rolling her eyes to the right, she barely managed to glimpse Darl. He hung in suspension just as she did.
“What’s happening?”
“I’m sorry,” Darl said. “I feel responsible for getting you mixed up in this. If I had known our friendship would come to such an end, I would never have asked you to teach here.”
“Why?”
“The protectors. I was hoping that by educating the children, their parents would begin to learn some of the teachings of your writers, and that, in time, they would be able to discard the superstitions that have led us to rely on the protectors. I hoped my people could throw off the yoke of servitude imposed on them.”
“Servitude?”
“Or slavery,” said Darl. “Whatever one chooses to call it. The protectors come here every summer, supposedly to provide guidance, but in reality to take one child of every ten to serve in their temples, to become like them.”
“And you let them?” Carol asked, shocked at the revelation.
“We don’t have a choice. The protectors do not tolerate opposition. In the past, those who confronted them were made to serve as examples to the others of what happens to heretics.”
“And that is what they plan for us?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Darl. “I had hoped that they would not learn of your activities, that they would come, take the grain and children, and go. I underestimated them.”
“Can Dan stop them?”
“Dan is hanging right behind you. He has not regained consciousness.”
Carol struggled to move, straining with every muscle in her body.
“No use fighting,” said Darl. “Only a protector can free us from these bonds.”
Carol ignored him, reaching inward with her mind, searching for a center. Tension drained from her body, so that once again she was floating, drifting toward the light, the peaceful light surrounding her, soothing her, etching a brand into her shoulder in living flame.
She screamed, her voice filled with terror and rage.
“What’s happening?” Darl asked.
“Nothing,” she said, sobbing. “Nothing at all.”
Several minutes passed before she regained her composure. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to lose control.”
“It’s nothing. I feel that way as well.”
“What . . . what happens now?”
“We wait for sundown,” said Darl. “The protectors like to gather the people at dark to watch these ceremonies. Afterward, their lesson given, they will take their portion of our harvest, along with the selected neophytes, and depart. But not before they have appointed a new chief. They have concluded that Dan is no longer fit to rule.”
“When I don’t return this evening, my father will come looking for me.”
“Too late, I am afraid. Either way, I don’t think he could do anything to stop them. As you can see, their dark gods grant the protectors great power.”
Carol paused. She had intended to discuss the subject of magic with Darl earlier. However, doing so would inevitably lead to a discussion of her own use of magic, her subsequent branding, and the circumstances of Hawthorne’s death, uncomfortable topics that she had put off.
“That is where you’re wrong,” said Carol. “They wield magic no different from that used by others I have known.”
“Does your father have one of these wielders?” Darl’s voice carried a hopeful note.
Carol paused. “Not anymore. The wielder in our group died several months ago.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
The afternoon wore on, and the shadows lengthened. Dan awakened but refused to speak. As evening crept into the valley, a protector entered the room and gestured. The magically bound prisoners floated after him as he departed. The protector moved methodically upward in the cavern, heading toward the amphitheater. Carol had often traveled this path to conduct classes for the children. This lesson would not be so pleasant.
The three prisoners floated to a stop near the center of the stone amphitheater. The entire valley’s population filled the semicircular rows of seats. On the raised central dais, six more protectors, the hoods of their robes pulled up, waited beside the rock slab that she had seen in her vision. Katya lay atop the slab, silently staring upward.
“Oh no,” Carol said in a hushed breath.
The voice of the priest in the center echoed through the amphitheater. “My people! Hear me!”
The murmur of voices in the crowd died.
“I made the journey south from our temple at Mo’Lier with the same great anticipation as always, looking forward to the warmth and love that our visits with you bring. I looked forward to giving you the wise words of our high council and conducting the traditional ceremonies of renewal. Imagine my disappointment upon discovering that an outsider moved among you, teaching forbidden skills, spreading heresy. Thank the da
rk god that we arrived in time to end this treachery.”
Just then, Kira rushed forward from the crowd to fall on her knees before the priest.
“Oh, Holy One,” Kira wept. “I beg of you. Do what you will to my husband and me. It was truly our fault. But please spare my little girl. Surely, in your great wisdom, you can find the mercy necessary to—”
“Do not tell me what I can and cannot do!”
Kira stumbled backward before the priest’s harsh words.
“The gods are angered by your actions. Only the sacrifice of an innocent may appease them.”
“You filthy bastards!” Carol hissed. “When my father catches you, he’ll cut your evil hearts out and then journey north to burn your temple to the ground!”
“Silence!”
The priest waved his hand, and Carol felt the sleeve of her shirt torn away to reveal her living brand. With another gesture, she began rotating slowly, bathed in a brilliant light so that all could see the elemental mark on her left shoulder.
“Behold the elemental-marked witch who seeks to corrupt you.”
A low chant arose from all seven priests. As the chant mounted, the sky darkened, and the priests on the platform moved to form a circle around the stone. Carol struggled to break free, to center her mind, anything. Rage coursed through her body, making her left shoulder throb in rhythm with her pounding pulse.
The chant reached a crescendo as the high priest drew from his cloak an obsidian dagger, veined with thin red lines that seemed to pulse with anticipation. The protector turned and walked slowly toward the stone slab, where he bent to kiss Katya gently on the forehead. The fury that coursed through Carol’s mind became a torrent, frothing with the bloody foam of hate.
The protector extended the dagger slowly, pricking a point just above Katya’s heart, marking the spot for its entry. Then he raised the blade high above his head, turning his face to the heavens. “Mighty Krylzygool, I give you this girl that you may taste her blood and be appeased.”
Carol reached out with her mind for the fire elemental, felt fear’s clutch try to stop her, and let her rage burn that fear to dust.
“JAA’DRAAAAAAAAAA!”
Carol’s yell thundered through the valley as her mind lashed out, snaring the fire elemental in a grip that it had never felt before. With a shriek that crackled through the air, the elemental descended on the dagger, turning it into a molten blob that fell upon the protector’s face, burning through flesh.
The priest crumbled to the ground. The other protectors stood frozen at the sight. A hush fell over the crowd as their chanting stopped. Carol stepped forward in the air, suspended now by her own will. Storm clouds boiled over the canyon walls, and lightning arced downward, one bolt connecting to the next in an undying web as thunder shook stone.
Winds howled through the crowd, sweeping up the priests and depositing them together in the center of the dais. Three of the protectors raised their arms to summon spells of their own, but they perished before they completed the tasks, their bodies crumbling into brittle piles of ash swept aloft by the wind. The remaining priests dropped to their knees, whimpering, begging for mercy.
Carol settled to the ground and stepped forward, not pausing as she passed Darl and Dan, who had tumbled from their suspension when the first priest had fallen.
“I will give you fifteen minutes to be gone from this valley forever,” Carol said, facing the cowering protectors. “Any of you I lay eyes on after that will long for the deaths I gave the others.”
She paused, then said, “The sands are draining from your hourglass.”
The protectors scrambled to their feet, knocking some of the others down in their haste to flee the amphitheater. In seconds, they had all disappeared over the wall leading down to the valley floor. Carol lifted her eyes to the lightning that crawled through the storm clouds above, savoring her control of Lwellen, the lightning master, increasing the strength of her casting so that the stone beneath her feet vibrated with the thunder’s echo. Best to lend speed to the running feet of the fleeing protectors.
Slowly she let the lightning fade.
She turned and stepped toward the stone slab where Kira cradled Katya’s head in her arms. An eerily familiar scene. Carol could hear Dan issuing orders to some of his men, telling them to watch the priests and ensure that they had departed. As she reached Kira’s side, Carol placed a hand on her shoulder, gently moving her out of the way.
She looked down at Katya. The child’s eyes had glazed over, and her breathing was extremely shallow, the rise of her chest barely perceptible.
Carol concentrated, and a gentle light bathed the platform, enabling her to see. What had the priests done to the child—drugged her? She placed her hand on Katya’s forehead. The girl was on fire with fever, but her skin was dry. Heatstroke?
She reached out for Jaa’dra once more, grabbing it more gently, willing it to the child, directing it to absorb some of the heat from Katya’s body. Then the presence of another fire elemental within the girl’s mind stopped Carol cold. A name formed inside her head, one she was unfamiliar with: Oganj.
“Oh no!” she whispered.
“What is it?” asked Darl, who had come up beside her.
“The protectors have caused a minor fire elemental to possess her.”
“Can’t you do something?” Kira pleaded. “You’re more powerful than the protectors.”
“I’m afraid I might hurt your daughter in the attempt. But our high priest can advise me on this. I will take Katya to him.”
A low wail escaped Kira’s lips and was carried away on the dying wind. As Carol knelt there, gently stroking the child’s face, a worm of regret crawled through her mind. How could she have let the protectors who did this return to their temple? She had not seen the last of them.
Carol gazed in the direction the priests had departed. Fresh lightning branched through the sky above the cliffs. Then, sheathing her anger for later use, she let the lightning die.
9
Eastern Coast of Tal
YOR 414, Late Summer
Far below where Kragan stood atop a coastal hill, campfires twinkled like a great swarm of fireflies on the plain, fifty leagues southeast of the ruins of Hannington. The night air was still and cool, with just a hint of moisture, and it carried the sound of distant laughter to his ears. Kragan’s eyes drank in the sight. As his army had progressed eastward through Tal, conquering the noble estates one after another, the war camp had grown as thousands of new conscripts and slaves had been pressed into Kragan’s service. The smell of smoke wafted upward from campfires that would be left to burn themselves out with the coming of dawn.
Kaleal’s voice rumbled in Kragan’s mind: The silent one in the west has awakened.
The feel of the night, the smell of smoke on the breeze, and the sound of Kaleal’s voice in Kragan’s head pulled forth the brutal memory of the moment when, at Kragan’s urging, the primordial lord of the elemental planes had merged with the ancient wielder. The pain Kragan had endured as his body had changed, gaining in height and breadth, had burned itself into his mind. Tendons and tissue had rippled into place, stretching skin until it burst, only to reknit itself, then burst again. Gradually the cycle slowed, the skin thickening, taking on a bronze hue that eliminated all traces of the scars that had covered much of Kragan’s body.
When his suffering had ended, the sight of himself in the mirror had made the agony Kragan had endured worthwhile. Golden eyes stared back at him from a feline face atop a body that was a thing of seductive splendor and authority. But far more important than his appearance was the combined power of their shared minds. In the coming months, Kragan and Kaleal would enslave this continent and open a path to the outer world that had spawned Kragan all those centuries ago. He would not allow Landrel’s she-wielder to stand in his way.
Returning his focus to Kaleal’s comment, Kragan clenched his clawed hands, sinews rippling. “I know,” said Kragan aloud.
&nbs
p; She is getting stronger, said Kaleal. When so much time passed since last I felt her, I began to think that perhaps some accident had befallen the woman. The sooner we deal with that one, the better.
“Her strength is irrelevant. No matter what, she cannot prevail against the power of our joint wills. When I have conquered the last of the noble estates and gathered enough conscripts to augment my army, I will begin preparations for the invasion of Endar. In the meantime, I will dispatch my allies in the west to deal with the prophecy’s witch and her father.”
Rafel’s daughter easily dispatched a group of Jorthain’s priests.
“A small group of underlings,” said Kragan. “High Priest Jorthain has many more powerful protectors in Mo’Lier and will raise an army to deal with Rafel’s legion.”
Kaleal laughed, a low rumble that escaped Kragan’s lips and rolled out over the encampment.
For several moments, all other sounds ceased as the immense army of men and vorgs glanced about uncertainly. Then, with nervous laughs of their own, the members of the horde returned to their preparations for the next day’s march.
PART II
During my long life, I have faced many enemies. But never did I think that my own people would cast me out.
—From the Scroll of Landrel
10
Areana’s Vale
YOR 414, Late Summer
Arn, Ty, John, and Kim sat atop their horses in a canyon leading toward the place where two towering rock walls pinched together. As he watched the group of twenty heavily armed riders trot out of the opening to meet them, Arn thought back on the months of searching the western lands after his group departed Endar. The long search for Rafel had finally yielded word of a large group of newcomers. And that news had brought Arn here.
“This is quite some country your old boss picked out,” said John.
“And he’s sent a reception party out to welcome us,” Arn said, pointing toward the approaching riders. “Just be composed, keep your hands off your weapons, and let me do the talking.”
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