A bolt of lightning arced out of the sky, blasting the golem into oblivion. Winds of horrible hurricane strength tore at Karanel’s pale braid, whipping it around her neck, but she felt no fear. Not anymore. When she could see again, the golem was a smoking hulk of metal debris. The sky was dark with clouds, and a heavy rain pelted her from all sides.
The last four golems had her trapped. She could feel her body shaking, starting to snap under the strain of so much Striding. Killing them one by one might work, but it might not. She did not have time. The men… I hope the men escaped through the postern gates. I hope. I hope…
Karanel gritted her teeth. The sword she had stuck in the ground was glowing a blue so bright she could barely look at it. The world was falling apart around her, growing darker and darker…
Fire streaked from the golems; four deathly balls of flame that would not even leave her ashes behind. The men must have made it out. They must have.
Karanel leaped into the air, higher than she had ever done before. The wind carried her as she willed, and when she had soared above the gates of the keep and far over the heads of her enemies, she stopped.
For half a second, the Windmaster hung suspended in the air.
Then a funnel of fiery wind fell from the skies, sweeping past her into the dalheim. Stone cracked and crumbled as the keep collapsed. The golems roared in rage.
Then Karanel Winter hurled herself down to the earth in a glowing bolt of light. Everything within a hundred meters was ripped apart like a leaf in a blaze, struck by energy so potent that the golems and their Coalskins, the horses in the stables, and the stables and keep themselves all melted into ash.
The storm died away in minutes, and a mighty wind that rose from the west blew away the remnant of the dalheim and the battle that had been fought there.
All but Karanel. She lay, broken and shuddering, clothes and hair in tatters, amid a dark wound in the earth where the lightning had cast her.
She was dying… but not dead.
Chapter Eight: Severed
The Windwalker’s tale seemed impossible, but somehow Avarine knew it to be true. None she knew could have done what this male human said he had… but if anyone could, it was he. Lauro Vale. A prince. He drew her like birds to the sky, or a blade to flesh. One of the two, and she was not sure which.
One thing was certain, though, and she knew it. Her dreams… and Kalzikir’s… had been about this human. She could not ignore him, whatever she did. Kalzikir had lost hope, but she would not. She refused to.
“That is how I found myself here, nymph. I ask only that you would let me go free, to continue this quest I have been set on, and…”
“The treetoken,” Avarine said quietly, and the Windwalker prince stopped amidst what he had been going to say.
“What? I don’t know what a treetoken is, Nymph.” His voice seemed less forceful, now. The lack of air was getting to him. Still, Avarine curled her lip. That he could not see her was no excuse.
“My name is Avarine, Openlander. Call me by it, or I leave you here. Just because you cannot see me is no reason for rudeness.”
There was a pause. Obviously the prince had not thought of it this way before, but his answer came quick enough. “Fine… Avarine. But don’t call me Openlander, then. My name is Lauro.”
“Lauro. Show me your treetoken, Lauro.”
“I already said I don’t know what that is.”
Avarine sighed. “You carry it, you speak of it… yet you do not know what it is?” That gave him pause. Perhaps he was lying, and knew he had been caught… or perhaps he had not really known, and only now realized what he carried. “I… the wooden bird? It’s hanging around my neck. I can’t reach it, not with my hands stuck like this.”
Avarine could see in the darkness, barely. It was one aspect of her gifts. She rose from where she had silently crouched, and moved in front of Lauro. The Windwalker stiffened, as if he sensed she was there- he had better senses than most, obviously. Cautiously- anxiously, though Avarine knew no reason she should be afraid- she turned aside his worn shirt-collar and found the leather string of a necklace at his neck. A low hiss escaped his mouth, and the word “cold,” but he did not move. She did not answer. Her hands were always cold.
Drawing out the wooden carving on the end of the necklace, she closed her hand around it, feeling the contours of the carving. Her eyes were not good enough to show her exactly how it looked, not in the dark, but sense of touch would not fail her.
Yes, this was the one. It had to be. He had to be. She let the necklace go, but kept her place in front of Lauro. This must drive him mad, to know she was close but be unable to see her. She wondered she would be beautiful to him. Stop. This is not why you came. She put the thought away, but did not quench it. It could be… useful, later.
“That is a treetoken… Lauro. I have one as well.” She fingered the treetoken hanging on a thin black string ‘round her throat. “What it is… I do not know, completely. But it binds us together.” A sharp intake of breath told her he did not want to hear that, but she continued. “I am not sure how… but my dreams have spoken to me, and they never lie. Kalzikir, the Holy One of Mortenhine… he is broken, now. Broken by my father. But before that, he told me things…” she was rambling, realized it, and halted.
“The cleric? The one who… is broken. Oh. I see.” Lauro had understood her? She took a breath.
“Yes. I had forgotten that was what you called them. He suspected I was like him-”
“Like a cleric? You have the powers of a cleric?”
“-In a way. Kalzikir was never of strong mind, but he did help me. When others cursed me and shunned me and called me Lekor Veele… Demon Girl… he took me in. When my own father would not speak to me, Kalzikir taught me how to stay out of sight, to change others’ emotions, when I could… to see through shadows too dark for the others… to bring light where there was none…”
She told him all, then, pouring out the tale of her upbringing by a despairing, feeble-minded cleric who had failed at his duty and saw her as his only way to try again. Avarine told Lauro of her father’s pain at learning she was ‘unholy,’ like Kalzikir, of his allowing her to act however she wished, to do whatever she wanted, so long as she stayed away.
And as she spoke, she let her power seep into her words. The Power of Spirit. That was what Kalzikir had called it. The clerics’ secret. They could Stride, but not of the physical elements. Of the supernatural. Avarine let her emotions- the pain of her losses, and the desire she felt so strangely and strongly to join Lauro in task- bleed into the prince’s spirit. Spirit Striding. It was her curse and her blessing.
“You’re an outcast,” Lauro said at the end, and smiled. She could see the gleam in his eye, and knew she had succeeded. He knew how much they were like each other, now. “You and I…” Lauro said, then stopped. His smile faltered. “You… you’re glowing, Avarine. At least… there’s light around you, or in you, or near… what’s going on?”
Avarine blinked. She had not even noticed. “…to bring light where there was none…”
“Your gifts?” Lauro asked, raising an eyebrow.
Avarine nodded slowly, trying not to let the heat she felt show on her cheeks. She had not meant to lightbring, only… only she seemed to want to, no matter what, when she was near this Openlander. She had felt the tug when stalking him through the Blackwood, and when… and when she had gone before her father to plead for his life, asking the Tannarch to give him to her as a gift, rather than killing him. It had worked… until he had escaped, and she was forced to hunt him down again, to stop him from getting away; not from the M’tant… but from her.
“It makes you look… powerful,” Lauro told her, and this time he sounded embarrassed. Had he been going to say something else? Suddenly Avarine felt afraid, though she knew she had nothing to fear from a prisoner who could not move. Or did she?
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I learned it not so long ago. It will pass t
he time easier, I think, to see each other’s faces.” Was that the right thing to say? She was unsure, now, and a bit angry. Shouldn’t she be the one playing with emotions? Dreams? Not him!
“Well… I’m not sure I understand any of what’s going on,” Lauro admitted, trying to wriggle into a more comfortable position from where he hung suspended. It didn’t work, and he grimaced. “Anyway, I assume from what you’ve said that you’re not going to let me be… uh, executed by your father?”
Right. That was it. Avarine shook herself into reality. Of course!
“No, Lauro Vale… I will not let that happen. But you must trust me better than you’ve trusted anyone before. My gifts… will help us, and make the impossible, probable… but we must work together, and I will not always seem to be there.”
“You’re not making sense,” he told her, and she frowned. She was telling him what would come, even if he couldn’t see it.
“Just understand this. All I have done, though it has seemed to hurt you,” he raised an eyebrow again in that annoying way she couldn’t imitate, “…has all been to help you. I cannot free you from these bonds. When the Segrethe come to bring you to your death, they will do that for me. Do not, at all, even think of trying to escape until I tell you.” Muddled, but true. It would happen exactly that way, as her dreams had told her.
Confusion and doubt etched the Windwalker’s face. “That doesn’t…”
“…Make sense? I rarely do, Lauro Vale.” Avarine let her light wink out, and they were both plunged into total darkness again. Finally. I am not sure I like the way he looks at me.
“So… you’re my friend, after all?” the prince asked the blackness.
“Oh yes,” Avarine said, clasping her hands and Spirit Striding. When the guards came, and the Segrethe with their long black scythes… she would be ready.
Oh yes… she would be ready. Her feelings and thoughts about Lauro Vale might be jumbled and embarrassing… but she would be ready.
~
Surprisingly, Lauro found that he was able to catch a few minutes’ sleep before the M’tant executioners came for him. He had time for one rather embarrassing dream involving Avarine before the red-haired nymph girl prodded him awake in the darkness.
“They’re coming,” she whispered, “I can feel…” Her voice trailed off, and her touch faded away. Lauro himself felt more than light-headed, and had trouble breathing. The air must be running out. Blast…
It was a moment of almost-bliss when the inevitable green-lit crack appeared in the wall, this time to his right side, and two dark-robed nymphs with tall, black-bladed scythes strode through. Lauro involuntarily twitched his head, looking for Avarine… and could not find her. She was gone, again. Unseen. Whether that meant she had somehow left the chamber, or whether she could turn invisible… he couldn’t guess, especially not with the buzzing in his head whenever he thought of her. Gah… he was getting as soft as Gribly. Losing focus on his duty.
Silently the two nymphs came to stand on either side of him. Their faces were hid in shadow, and the only skin showing was that of their unnaturally long, pale fingers as they gripped the hafts of the scythes in both hands. As one, both nymphs raised the grim weapons, and as one they smote the stone beneath their feet.
CREAKKK. With a deafening sound and wrenching pain, the molded stone holding Lauro’s hands and feet twisted away into the ceiling and floor, dropping him unceremoniously onto his hands and knees with a jarring thud. He stayed there, blinking as the sudden release pumped blood through his body, making his long-imprisoned limbs throb and stiffen. Aura help me, that hurts.
“Come,” hissed one of the Segrethe, black robes rippling as it turned on him.
“No,” he said, stars still swimming before his eyes. Suddenly a crushing pain stabbed into his head, and he tasted blood as his face was slammed into the stony floor. An involuntary gasp escaped him. That blasted nymph had hit him with the scythe handle!
I will make you pay, he thought, dragging himself upright. Only two things kept him from attacking his captors there and then: the fact that they were obviously Stone Striders, and strong ones; and that Avarine had told him not to. Fine. But you will pay, Nymphs. You will pay until you have not the blood left in your body to pay me more.
~
Avarine followed Lauro at a distance; too close the Severers with him might detect her. She hated them, hated the Segrethe for denying that she was like other Striders, hated them for turning the other Striders against her… and hated them most for what they’d done to Lauro just now. Bullies and fools! But not for long. She just had to wait, until the perfect opportunity came…
Hold on, my Windwalker, she thought silently to herself. Hold on.
~
The morbid journey through endless spider-webbing hallways lit only with that eerie green glow was beginning to make Lauro’s head hurt worse than before. The Segrethe did not go at a slow pace, and any time he seemed to slack too much for their taste he was treated to a hefty blow from one or the other’s scythe-shaft. He could never guess which one would strike him, nor keep up the constant pace, so the blows were many and unexpected.
Only once did he try to feel for the Sky. The touch was like reaching for gold through a pit of tar: he could feel his native element, far above him and gloriously free, but he could barely grasp it through the oppressive weight of Stone that lay between. He was far underground; that much was certain, but it was something else, too. The stony path at his feet seemed to suck at him. He could barely move his legs fast enough to move, and it felt as if at any step he might sink into the ground and be devoured by the earth itself.
Stone Striding. It had to be his captors, Stone Striding with all their might to ensure he could not use his own Striding against them. Here, where there was so much Stone and So little Sky… a rebellion was pointless. He was as good as dead, if Avarine didn’t come through. Please, he though quietly to himself, please don’t leave. I need you now, nymph girl. I don’t want to, but I need you… don’t let me down.
But he had no way of knowing when or how she planned to defeat the guards and get him free. It was maddening.
Up ahead he could see two great stone doors, written over and over in runes and symbols from an older age. Tandem hisses came from the Segrethe on either side of him… but hisses of satisfaction, rather than anger. Emerald light spilled from a thin crack between the doors, and Lauro realized that in some way, whatever was beyond the stone arch must be the source of the poisonous light that filled the M’tant’s every tunnel.
Now would be a very, VERY good time to help, Avarine.
But no help came. The Segrethe paused before the ancient doors and once more lifted their scythes in unison, then slammed them into the ground. With unbelieving eyes Lauro watched the stone at their feet ripple outward, in an impossible surge of energy that traveled across the floor and up the doors, which then swung outward seemingly of their own accord. Stone Striding, or sorcery? Lauro wondered, heart thumping faster and faster. Somehow he knew that here was where he had been brought to die.
Was now the time to escape? Could he, if he tried? Or should he trust Avarine? The nymphs were urging him onward, yet he found he could not move.
What is my path… Which do I choose?
Lauro chose, and stepped across the threshold into the glittering death that lay beyond the doors. It’s up to you, Avarine.
Chapter Nine: Night Heart
The room beyond the doors was wide and high-ceilinged, cut from stone in an exact circle, filled with stone pillars at odd points that threw strange shadows in crisscrossing shapes across the floor. Something, blocked at the moment by the forest of pillars, was casting that green light stronger than ever from the center of the chamber. It all seemed so familiar, and yet so alien, that Lauro had been brought halfway to the center before he realized where he was.
This is the M’tant Shrine! Or… or it used to be. He saw now where the statues of the eleven Aura had been defaced or t
hrown down around the open dais in the middle of the Shrine. There was no altar there now… only a large stone ball, cracked in several places, leaking brilliant emerald light out everywhere. The prince thought fear would freeze him in his tracks, obliterate him… but it did not. He kept on walking in a numb sort of daze, the Segrethe on either side of him, ensuring he did not break loose.
Before he even realized it, Lauro was muttering frantic prayers to the Creator under his breath, too low for his captors to hear over the vibrating hum that throbbed throughout the once-Shrine, emanating from the broken stone orb at its center. The prayers caught in Lauro’s throat as he neared it.
He had seen such a thing before, in the ground beneath the Swaying Willow Inn… and in the aftermath of Gribly’s battle with the Sea Demon attacking Mythigrad. Could this be one of the strange things Traveller had told him about? A sort of physical core, rooting a Spirit being to the world of flesh? Was there a demon in Mortenhine?
Golden Tide (Song of the Aura, Book Four) Page 7
