by JD Franx
Camping that night in the forest, Cassie showed Kael how to dry the demon hand with the rock salt and sulphur crystals they scavenged from a trickle of sour water weeping from the mountain’s western rock wall. They also managed to find one green quaini plant to help cure the demon hand. It would still take days of being wrapped in salt and sulphur to dry it out.
They returned to the trail the next morning and encountered no more problems over the next eleven days. Cassie’s foot healed well, and there was no permanent damage, thanks to the help from plants they found in the forest, but Kael was positive it would leave an ugly scar on the top of her foot.
They arrived at Kazzador City just before dark on the eleventh day away from Aravae’s camp.
DWARVEN MOUNTAIN RANGE
SEVERAL DAYS SOUTH
Giddeon’s group continued along the northern mountain trail the morning after their fight with the toldari. Max drove the wagon, while Ember lay unconscious in the back wrapped in blankets to keep her warm. She had not regained consciousness yet and likely wouldn’t. Yrlissa and Kyah rode in the back as well. Yrlissa refused to leave Ember unattended, and Kyah was still weak from her grievous injuries. Kasik and Saleece rode at the rear, grateful to be spending time together because of what Ember had done to save Kasik, though he still moved slowly from the pain caused by his torn back. Ember had slipped into the coma immediately after taking the poison into her body so she was unable to heal the vicious wounds caused by the toldari’s claws. Yrlissa had done her best to close the wounds.
Giddeon rode out front. They encountered no problems of any kind and he continued riding out front for the next three days. Yrlissa remained in the wagon and kept an eye on Ember’s failing condition. It was becoming increasingly clear that she was fighting a losing battle, and it was beginning to weigh heavily on Yrlissa and Max. Both grew quieter as the days passed by.
Giddeon slowed his mount until it was even with the wagon. He had just started to discuss finding a camp for the night with Yrlissa and Max when ahead on the straight stretch of trail they noticed a hooded traveller walking their way.
“She’s Elvehn,” Yrlissa commented as she pulled her hood lower to shield the glare of the setting sun. “And she’s an elementalist.”
“How could you possibly tell from this distance?” Giddeon asked with a touch of ignorance.
“Look closer, Giddeon,” she replied. “You can’t tell me that you have seen a Human with such physical features, and her magic? Look how the wind blows the grass and leaves everywhere but where she walks. Nature responds to her presence, she doesn’t interact with it. I’m also pretty sure she’s not Orotaq. Or would you like to argue that too?” She snorted at the indignant look she received as the ArchWizard heeled his horse and trotted ahead of the wagon.
Giddeon raised his hand with the palm facing behind him to let Max know that he should slow the wagon. Max passed the signal back to Kasik and Saleece. Urging her mount forward, Saleece rode to join her father. Kasik stayed behind to guard the rear from an ambush.
Continuing to ride along the trail, Giddeon smiled back over his shoulder. “You win, Yrlissa. She’s definitely not Orotaq. Now that she’s closer...” he trailed off, just as Saleece rode up.
“Father? What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Come, let’s go meet our fellow... traveller.” His smile widened and they urged their horses forward at a faster pace, stopping only feet from the hooded woman.
Giddeon raised his arm. “Greetings. If you’re alone this night, we would be honoured to share a meal in exchange for news from the north.”
“I should hope so, my husband,” Aravae said, as she gently pulled down her hood. “I should hope the least you could do was offer a meal.” She smiled.
“Mother!” Saleece shouted, as she bolted from her horse. Landing on the ground, she jumped into her mother’s arms. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“As am I, daughter.” Aravae laughed as she returned Saleece’s hug. Still holding Saleece tight, she looked up at her estranged husband. “Giddeon, you’ve been well I hope?”
“Well enough, Ara. You?” he asked.
“I have been all right. Thank you for asking,” she replied.
As Saleece let go of her mother, a suspicious look flashed across Aravae’s face. “Giddeon... What are you all doing up here, and why in all the gods forsaken places are you dragging a wagon with you?”
Giddeon sighed as he looked at her, his eyes weary. “Let’s find a place to camp for the night. Once Max and Kasik can tell us it’s safe, I’ll fill you in, fair enough?”
“It will have to be, won’t it? Come, I passed a good place to camp for the night a short way back,” she answered, a confused look crossed her smooth features.
“It’s a long story, Aravae.”
Only a short way down the trail, they were able to get the wagon carrying Ember off the trail and into the woods. They stopped for the night about a quarter mile in from the lightly travelled mountain road.
With Kasik and Max out scouting for dangers, Giddeon brought Aravae to the wagon. Yrlissa was in the back, watching over Ember, even though there was nothing she could do.
“This is part of the reason we are here,” Giddeon said, lightly touching Ember’s saturated forehead. The dangerously high fever was out of control.
“Who is she?” Aravae asked. “She’s very sick.”
“I know. Gods, I don’t even know where to start. I sent a letter to your family in Kyll’Darhen half a year ago to let you know, but I guess it never found you,” he explained.
“I have been in Commune. You know that. One year for every year our baby would have been a child,” she replied, shaking. He took her warm hands in his.
“I know, love. Sixteen or eighteen years depending on what your soul dictates. I had hoped your Commune was over, so I sent the letter, because... He’s back, Aravae. About five months ago, Kael was brought back to this world…”
Aravae slowly shook her head, and out of nowhere, she slapped Giddeon, hard. The sharp report echoed across the camp site like the snap of a heavy branch. With watery eyes and ringing ears, he grabbed her hands, gently, so she couldn’t strike him again.
For several minutes, she stared at him, shaking with anger. “A letter, you spineless bastard? Our son came back from another dimension and you sent me a letter? You deserve nothing less than to rot in the deepest, darkest hell that exists, Giddeon Zirakus. You should have come and found me...” she hissed. Her anger quickly fled, turning to disbelief. “But you didn’t come find me because you were too busy hunting him. You’re going to kill him, aren’t you? Even now, you’re all chasing him, aren’t you?”
Yrlissa jumped into the conversation, placing her hand on Aravae’s shoulder. “Not all of us hunt Kael, Mynerha. I do not intend to let anyone hurt him again.”
Hearing the Dyrannai term used to offer the highest respect, Aravae studied Yrlissa closely. “You speak Dyrannai, young one, and with the proper accent. How is that possible?”
“I’m not so young, I promise you.” Yrlissa smiled. “As for the other, I am a Blackmist. My family’s blood was among the first born to the soultrees of the Dyrannai.”
“And mine,” Aravae answered. “The Valyndir family would have lived and died beside yours for many centuries. I wasn’t aware another family had survived to the present day. My family knows nothing about those times, do you?”
Shaking her head Yrlissa lied. “No, mistress. I am the last Blackmist, I am sorry.”
“Still, it is good to meet another descendant of the Dyrannai Forest, my dear. You on the other hand, you bastard,” Aravae barked, turning back to Giddeon as Yrlissa headed into the forest to scrounge for firewood. “Do not think for a moment I will allow you to...” She stopped talking, as if all the pieces finally clicked together. “That is why you’re up here. You’re chasing him up the mountain. You’re the one’s who hurt him. That’s why there were no Brethren markers on him. It was you! Which one
of you tried to kill my son, Giddeon?! Answer me, or I swear to all the gods, you will pay right here and now!”
“What in the Nine Hells are you talking about?” Giddeon demanded.
“Four nights ago, I found a young girl running through the trees looking for help for her friend. It was Kael, it was our son. Nothing about him...” She broke down crying. “I healed him and he told me his name was Kael, but I never even thought that it could be our Kael. Dammit, Giddeon. Why are you doing this? He’s our son. How could you do that to him? He almost died!” she rambled on, confused and hurt. With no other option, Giddeon grabbed her and pulled her to his chest, fighting her attempts to break free.
“It wasn’t us, Ara!” he yelled, holding her tighter. “I promise you, it wasn’t us. We’re not hunting him. At least not any longer, I don’t think, anyway,” he tried to explain.
She calmed down enough to look up at him. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, believe me. Here, turn around, all right?” he asked, gently pulling her arm and looking down at Ember. “This sick young woman is Ember. She is Kael’s wife. She and Max crossed over with Kael when the Dead Sisters brought him back. She is the reason we aren’t really hunting Kael. She is Fae, Aravae, a pure and full-blooded young Fae woman. We have given her our promise to talk to Kael first before anything else. Though it seems we may be running out of time. The morning you found him, he attacked a group of Mylla’s vested sisters. We burned the bodies, but it was a massacre. He is losing the fight for his humanity.”
“That’s not right, Giddeon,” Aravae said. “The little girl with him said it was witches who kidnapped him and she helped him escape.” Kyah’s eyes shot up, focusing on the discussion.
“We know,” Giddeon said stopping her. “The young woman with him is a young Dead Sister. She lied to you. You said yourself there were no marks of Brethren magic on him,” he said.
“No, that’s not right. The girl had healing magic. I watched her, I helped her heal Kael. There were only stab wounds and some electrical and fire burns, but she helped. Dead Sisters can’t heal, Giddeon, they have no empathy. You know that.”
“Then there’s another explanation. You know what Kalmar Ibess believes about the Dead Healers. Maybe she was one. As desperate as they were for help, I imagine they lied to gain your trust or your pity, maybe both. These are not normal people. The Dead Sisters are cruel, beyond the darkest of evil. You know that as much as I do, Aravae. You helped for years with the research about the Black Sun phenomenon.”
“Do not think for a single second that I am a coddled fool, Giddeon Zirakus. That girl was terrified, not being a thespian. It doesn’t matter. How do we help Kael now?”
Shaking his head, Giddeon said, “I don’t know. With Ember alive, we might have had a chance to talk him down, but it looks like she will be dead within a day or two...” Kasik entered the camp on the far side and waved Giddeon over.
“I’ll be right back, Ara,” he said.
Kyah stepped around the wagon, bowing to Aravae, as a vested sister would. “Mistress. Can you do anything for her? You have very strong healing magic for an elementalist.”
“You’re a priestess of Mylla,” Aravae said, not asking.
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Your group is the one Giddeon mentioned. The one Kael attacked?”
“Yes, Mistress. We tried to defend ourselves, but he was so strong and we weren’t expecting it. They seemed so nice during our evening meal. I tried to calm him, but the man we shared a meal with was gone. The markings on his skin grew into his eyes...”
“How could you possible know that unless you were face to face with him?” Aravae asked. Frowning, she stepped closer. Kyah put her head down and slowly untied the soft, white belt that held her tattered dress closed. The dress parted, showing off the monstrous scar from the wound Ember healed.
“I was,” she said, as Aravae gasped at the extensive scarring. “Right before he ran me through with the wickedest looking weapon I have ever seen...”
“I’m sorry...” Aravae began
“I survived, thanks to her,” Kyah said, interrupting as she motioned towards Ember. “Can you heal her?”
“I can try, yes.” Turning back to the rear of the wagon, Aravae placed one hand on Ember’s head and one on her her chest, then closed her eyes to concentrate. “Gods, her aura is amazing. It is so pure. I can feel the poison in her, but it acts like its alive, retracting just from my presence,” she explained as she continued examining Ember.
“Is there some magic you can try? Anything?” Kyah said, pushing harder as she watched Giddeon and Kasik’s conversation come to an end.
“Perhaps. Let’s see...”
“Aravae! Stop!” Giddeon yelled from the far side of the camp.
She frowned, turning. “Yes?”
“It’s black burrow worm.” Aravae’s hand leaped from Ember’s skin as if she had been burned as she spun towards Kyah, grabbing her arm. “Why didn’t you tell me that? Magic healing will kill her,” she lectured.
“I am so sorry, Mistress,” Kyah said. “I did not know...”
“It’s all right, Aravae,” Giddeon whispered as he approached. Aravae released Kyah and gave her a stern look as she silently excused herself and went to sit by the spot picked for a fire. Giddeon continued. “She will die anyway. Maybe there is something you can do.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe with a couple of months in the Ageless Library at Drae’Kahn, one might find a cure. If there is one. Only King Kohl would know how to help her.”
“We already discussed that. DormaSai might as well be on another plane. The distance is too great to help. There is nothing else we can do.” Aravae nodded her agreement and went to sit with her daughter while Giddeon waited for Max to return.
He knew in his mind that whether or not Ember survived, it was starting to look like his son was losing control of his sanity. He may still have to do what he had started out to finish so many months ago. He just wished there was a way for him to talk to Kael alone first. If he really had lost his mind, then Yrlissa, Max, and now Aravae, would all fight to defend Kael should the rest of them try to kill him.
His head hurt from the war of emotions and feelings that were fighting with his sense of duty, and he was running short of time to find an answer.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Eons ago, the gods blessed six families with magic drawn straight from their divine blood. These families quickly became known as the Elderblood Families. Each was granted a single god-like ability that was triggered by a single word. The power has been carried down through the blood of all the family’s children. Invisibility, rapid healing, immortality, levitation, time and dimension magic, and the most powerful Elder power of the six: magical augmentation, the ability to drastically increase or change all kinds of magical power. Though several descendants still exist, only a single wizard alive today is known to have Elderblood with active magic. Master Wizard Seifer Locke.”
Kalmar Ibess
Excerpt from annual lecture to new apprentice students
at Inara’s University of Magic Summer’s Dawn, 4998 PC
DASAL
Seifer and his apprentice, Kittrix Dawn, scoured every piece of paper and written document they found in Lircang Yorcali’s house and places of business, and they still had a mountain of boxes to go through. Everything was spread out in the barracks’ lunch room and had been there for too long.
Kit sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Is everything this paranoid bastard wrote in code? How many codes did he need?”
“Apparently Lircang didn’t want anyone to know what he was up to.”
“The only thing not in code was what Dahlea told me during her interrogation,” Kit added as she stared at yet another ledger written in a code they’d yet to decipher. “I’m sorry, Master. I don’t know if we’ll ever find out where Katarina might be.”
Seifer frowned as the door to the barracks opene
d. It closed gently so he ignored it, concentrating on the stack of papers in his hand. “Then we’ll keep looking until we do. It has to be here. Lircang Yorcali had a way of contacting Ella Navasha. I won’t stop looking until we find a way to track down Kat and bring her home.”
“I knew you would never give up,” Katarina said from the entry way. With his back to her, Seifer wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him. Kit’s voice told him it was not so.
“Blessed Mother Inara,” Kit whispered. Seifer spun, the papers fell from nerveless fingers and drifted to the floor.
“Kat?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
“Yes, Seifer. It’s me.” He could see her lips trembling and her whole body shook. Afraid to approach her, he stepped forward slowly. It was all she needed. Kat ran to his arms and buried her face in his neck as he slowly embraced her.
“I... I missed you,” he said, causing her to break down. He held her tight, refusing to let go as the barracks door opened again, and Ella the White walked in followed by a young woman with eyes cold as ice. Pulling Kat behind him, Seifer’s right hand filled with fire as the words for his spell left his mouth. His left hand filled with a clear shimmering magic that instantly jumped to his right. The red and orange flames sizzled with the increase in power and quickly turned white hot as he prepared to roast the witch who took Kat from him so many years ago.
The witch smirked as Kat jumped in front of him. “No, Seifer!” she yelled. “Stop, please.” Seifer felt his magic fade along with the feeling of excitement at seeing Kat again.
“Why?” he sighed, staring at Kat. “Why would you defend her? I know Lircang took you and sold you to her, he told us before he died...”
“Lircang Yorcali is dead?” Ella asked, moving closer.
“Yes, killed by assassins after he was caught trying to have a young man killed and his wife kidnapped. Now would someone please explain what the hell is going on? You have a lot of nerve stepping foot in my city, Ella Navasha.”
