Shadowglade

by Kay L. Ling

  “I bet Elias will be just as mystified as we are,” Jules said.

  “It would be cool if Tina Ann has a mutated gem power. I think it would make her happy, and I’m sure she’d use it to help us.”

  “She tries to be good, even though that’s a foreign concept for a breghlin.”

  As they walked down the passageway toward the library, Jules took Lana’s hand. “A gem for your thoughts.”

  She looked up at him and said quietly, “There’s a gnome inside Tina Ann, and it’s struggling to find its way out.”

  Chapter 35

  Lana and Jules sat down to wait for the clan leaders. Soon, Elias and Raenihel arrived, followed by the rest of the clan leaders.

  “That went quite well,” Elias said, setting the spell book on a table and sinking into one of the leather-over-animal-bone chairs. The clan leaders murmured their agreement, but now that the meeting was over and they were out of the public eye, they seemed weary and depressed.

  “Raenihel has agreed to look after S,” Elias said, updating Lana and Jules. “Later today we’ll take her to a tree near the Anen clan. As we expected, the gnomes are in an uproar after hearing about S’s treachery, so it’s a good thing we removed her from the castle when we did. Raenihel, two elders, and I will be the only ones to know where she is.”

  “With her gone, we’ll need fewer guards at Shadowglade,” Jules said.

  “You’re right. That’s another benefit.” Elias massaged his knuckles absently. “In a week or two, when things settle down, I’d like to gather a team to examine the Amulet barrier. Based on historical accounts, there’s little hope of rectifying the damage; nevertheless, we need to assess the situation firsthand.”

  “You won’t be able to see the barrier, will you?” Lana asked. “If it’s like the one in the Fair Lands, there will be an energy field, but you won’t be able to pinpoint the boundary line. Not unless you try to cross.”

  Elias frowned. “I imagine that’s the case. Perhaps we’ll find details in S’s library. Or the spell book may know something about it.” He gave the book a hopeful look, but it didn’t respond.

  A trip to the Amulet barrier, Lana thought with an inward sigh. That would be exciting, and she would love to go, but it was out of the question. The journey would take days, maybe weeks, and she couldn’t be away that long.

  Raenihel spoke up. “You’ll need weapons.” The concern in his voice was a reminder that weapons were in short supply. “The land between here and the barrier will be full of S’s creatures and hostile breghlin.”

  “We’ll include team members with gem powers, but yes, we should take conventional weapons as well,” Elias said. “Testing the barrier will probably be more dangerous than anything we encounter on the way.”

  Lana didn’t like the sound of that. “I don’t understand how the Amulet works. I mean, how does it keep things from going through? When I tried to take a gnome bedroll home, it disappeared. Where did it go?”

  “Based on my tests, I’d say it dematerialized. The Amulet converted the bedroll’s mass to energy.”

  “When I drove through, I couldn’t tell where the barrier was. I just looked over and the bedroll was gone.” She wet her lips. “If that had been a living being, he would have died, right? That’s pretty scary.”

  “Yes, it is. But since a gnome would be approaching on foot, he’d feel the Amulet’s repelling energy, which would serve as a warning. If he pressed onward, he’d be burned—like an evil being who touches a Fair Lands gem.”

  Apparently, Elias had learned this lesson decades ago, after he began to change and the Amulet sensed him as an outsider. “And if he withstood the pain and kept going?” Lana asked. When Elias didn’t respond, she had her answer. “So, if he was in a car, he’d be going too fast to feel anything, and he’d die.”

  “Yes, he’d end up like your bedroll—converted to energy.”

  Lana hadn’t been thinking about a gnome; she’d been thinking about the day Jordy and Greg, in rat form, were riding with her. The Amulet had begun to view them as evil and outsiders due to the dark powers that had turned them into rats, and their attempt to steal the Challenger’s knife and give it to S. The barrier had zapped Jordy with something like an electrical charge, and Greg had felt it too, to a lesser degree.

  “I’m sure Shadow’s barrier is dangerous, but we’ll be careful,” Jules said, apparently assuming he’d be on the team. “When the Mydorian portal was destroyed, the barrier became stronger, and the repelling force probably became stronger too, so we should be able to feel it from a distance.”

  “It may have altered other things as well, creating dangerous conditions you can’t anticipate,” Vegmir pointed out.

  “I’ve thought of that,” Elias said, “nevertheless, someone must go and I’m willing to lead the team.”

  “You’re sure you’re up to a long trip?” Lana asked.

  Elias looked mildly offended. “Yes, we’ll be traveling by cart. It’s not as if we’ll be walking.”

  Elias was in decent health, especially for a man of a hundred and seventy, she reminded herself, smiling at how ridiculous that sounded. Someone with gem powers and a grasp of gem power theory needed to perform the tests, and that left Elias as the only candidate. “If you and Jules go, what happens to Shadowglade?”

  Elias waved a dismissive hand. “The gnomes can manage for a couple weeks. Besides, Franklin will be here.”

  “He’ll want to go with you.”

  “No doubt, but there will be other trips more suited to his abilities. Someone should investigate historic sites like Last Hope,” Elias said.

  Kerosten latched onto that idea. “Yes, the maps in the spell book show a number of settlements. I imagine they’re nothing but ruins by now, but even so, we might find something useful.”

  The other gnomes nodded in agreement, and Morodin said, “I’d rather go on a trip like that, but then, dangerous adventures don’t appeal to me.”

  Lana’s mind had wandered. “If you’re sending a team to the Amulet, you should include a couple breghlin.”

  Everyone looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

  “I know the idea is to have gem powers, but seriously, they have a right to go, too. They’ve lost as much as the gnomes—maybe more.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Elias said. “Not only did S turn them into monsters, she cut them off from their gnome heritage.”

  “And no matter what happens with the barrier, they’ll always be breghlin. But they can become more like the gnomes,” Lana said.

  “And I hope they will,” Elias told her. “Both groups can have satisfying, productive lives, whether here or on the other side.”

  Lana frowned. “I hate to think of gnomes and breghlin being stuck here forever. It seems so unfair. There has to be a way to fix the malfunctioning Amulet.”

  “Gnomes do not give up easily,” Kerosten said. “Somehow, we will reunite both parts of Shadow.”

  The spell book said sharply, “Never call it that again.”

  Startled by the unexpected voice, all eyes turned to the book.

  “What are you talking about?” Elias demanded.

  “After destroying this land and turning it into a mere shadow of its former self, Sheamathan mockingly called this realm Shadow. You must never use that name again. This world is known as Ahmonell.”

  “Ahmonell,” Lana said. “That’s a beautiful name.”

  Raenihel said, “We knew Sheamathan had renamed our world, but our books—the few that survived—didn’t give its real name.”

  “Ahmonell is a land of great beauty,” the book said solemnly, “but you may never see it. The damage to the Amulet cannot be undone.”

  “You’re certain of that?” Jules asked, his tone a challenge.

  “I was here when the energy blast sealed it shut, and it is beyond my ability to describe that moment. Even with all her gems and unrivaled powers, Sheamathan could not reverse the damage.”

&n
bsp; Lana said fiercely, “Well she’s a beetle now, so she isn’t as clever as you think.” She immediately regretted her outburst. The book was being more cooperative, and she couldn’t afford to offend it. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. It’s just that the gnomes have been isolated here for over two hundred years, and I don’t want you discouraging them. S may have exhausted her ideas of how to reopen the barrier, but that doesn’t mean they won’t find a way.”

  Raenihel said, “That’s right. We’ve done many impossible things in the last few months.” He smiled at Lana, and she thought about her first trip to Shadowglade: facing Sheamathan, winding up in the dungeon, and meeting the wolfhound face-to-face. Things had looked hopeless then, but it had been a turning point. They had gone on to defeat S and set Shadow—Ahmonell—on a new course.

  “In the meantime,” Raenihel said, “S will live inside a tree, as we have for the last two centuries. And we will use this place—which is rightfully ours—as a meeting place for our clans.”

  “We have a great deal to do,” Vegmir said, but the despondent look he had worn only a few minutes ago was gone.

  Raenihel stood. “That’s right. We must not focus on the injustices we’ve suffered. We must press onward.”

  The clan leaders rose and Lana, Jules, and Elias also stood with them in a show of solidarity.

  The days ahead would hold more challenges than ever, Lana thought, but really, for those with the right attitude, challenge was just another word for adventure.

  Sneak Peek

  RUNES AND RELICS – BOOK 3 GEM POWER SERIES

  COMING FALL 2017

  Lana shared the gnomes’ despair. An impenetrable barrier separated this region of Ahmonell from the rest of the gnome world, and there was no way to break through. Sheamathan had known this for generations and had managed to keep it from the gnomes, but her sentient spell book, no longer loyal to her, had revealed the truth. The gnomes had suffered so much already, Lana thought bitterly, and now, just when their lives had begun to improve, they faced this new crisis.

  She followed Jules and Elias to the throne room, and they stood at the foot of the dais examining the throne. Carvings of grotesque creatures, whose eye sockets held gems with malevolent powers, covered every inch.

  “This hideous thing has to go,” Elias said grimly.

  Lana was all for that. She found the throne unsettling. “What are we going to do with it?”

  “Burn it,” Elias said decisively. “Even if we remove every gem, the throne may have infused their powers.”

  Jules looked worried. “Do we dare touch it? What do you know about it?”

  “According to S, breghlin made the carvings and set the gems in the eye sockets. Rather than handle the throne ourselves, I’ll ask them to dispose of it. It could be dangerous, but in their present mood, I think some will volunteer.”

  “Should we take any gems out first?” Lana asked.

  “I wouldn’t advise it,” Elias said. “You removed gems from the spell book without triggering a ward, but we might not be so lucky again. It would be safer to burn the throne intact and rake the ashes to recover gems.

  Lana wouldn’t argue with that logic. The fiasco with the sentient spell book had made Elias more cautious, and after spending a few weeks at Shadowglade, they had all become wary of wards and booby traps. “This is one bonfire I don’t want to miss,” she said as they left the throne room.

  After dinner, a handful of gnomes went to build a bonfire across the drawbridge near the castle’s outer walls. Franklin brought a cart around, and Elias opened the massive front doors, then met Lana and Jules in the throne room.

  “This is a historic moment,” Elias said, as six muscular breghlin climbed the dais steps and surrounded the throne.

  Lana swallowed, half-expecting the gargoyles on the wall to come to life and kill the breghlin, or a warding spell to incinerate them. Grunting with exertion, the breghlin lifted the massive throne and carried it uneventfully down the steps.

  Lana let out a long breath, but until the throne was a pile of ash, she wouldn’t completely relax.

  “Let’s watch them load it onto the cart,” Jules said.

  Able to walk faster than the breghlin with their burden, they reached the castle’s front steps ahead of them.

  Below, a boisterous crowd of gnomes and breghlin had gathered around the cart like a mob waiting for a hanging.

  The six breghlin, panting heavily, finally reached the front door, and the crowd cheered when they carried the throne down the steps and dumped it onto the cart with a mighty crash.

  Lana and Jules ran down the steps and hurried toward Franklin who stood beside the maraku, arms folded and a satisfied smile on his face. “I never thought I’d live to see this day,” Franklin said, shaking his head.

  The throne looked far less imposing now that it was laying mournfully on its side, about to be hauled away as trash.

  Elias eyed it with a slight frown. “So far so good.”

  “Let’s hope it will burn,” Lana said. In the last few weeks she had learned to take nothing for granted.

  “It should,” Elias said. “I consulted the spell book, and it agreed with this plan.”

  Maybe so, but how much did the spell book know about the throne? And could they trust what it told them? For all they knew, it still had conflicting loyalties.

  “Are we ready?” Franklin asked, jolting her from her thoughts. Elias nodded and Franklin climbed into the cart and snapped the reins. “Ya!”

  The cart pulled away, and in the fading daylight, gems sparkled from the throne.

  Raenihel and a couple guards had remained in the castle, but from what Lana could tell, everyone else was here. The crowd formed a procession behind the cart, following the throne to its doom.

  Once they crossed the drawbridge, Lana could see the bonfire. Orange sparks danced madly in the ascending smoke, as if in gleeful anticipation.

  Lana said, “S is lucky she doesn’t have to watch this.” Elias had moved S to a secret location, knowing her former subjects would like to throw her onto the fire along with her throne.

  “It feels like the end of an era,” Jules said. “Her pet pythanium and moat monsters are dead. Her spell book turned against her, and now her throne is about to be burned.”

  Lana slipped her hand into his. “She’s finally getting what she deserves.”

  “And the gnomes are better off now, despite being trapped in the Amulet.”

  The maraku neared the bonfire, tossing its head nervously, and Franklin reined the cart to a stop.

  The gnomes had made the bonfire with dead trees that had stood in the courtyard. A few pieces still lay on the ground, but most had already been put onto the fire, and the logs had burned down to a thick bed of glowing coals.

  Breghlin and gnomes surged forward and dragged the throne from the cart, then nearly came to blows over who would carry it to the fire.

  The rest, content to be spectators, crowded close, and even though Lana could see over their heads, they blocked most of her view. She knew the throne had landed when a shout went up, accompanied by a shower of sparks.

  “Come on, let’s get a closer look,” she urged Jules. They wove through the crowd and found an opening in the second row. The throne lay on its side. Small flames like grasping fingers reached up, exploring the wood that touched the coals. It would take several hours for the throne to burn. In the morning, there would be nothing left but ashes and lumps of charred wood, and they would recover the surviving gems.

  Someone cried out in alarm.

  The crowd began backing away. An elbow jabbed into Lana’s ribs. Someone stepped on her foot. She didn’t know what was wrong until someone shouted, “Look!” and pointed at the sky.

  The smoke was not behaving naturally. It was forming eerie shapes.

  Jules grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the rear of the crowd. Where was Elias? She looked about frantically and saw him coming toward them.

  “Wh
at’s happening?” she gasped.

  “I’m not sure,” Elias said distractedly, watching the sky.

  As she watched in amazement, the smoke patterns became more distinct and took on the forms of the creatures on the throne.

  “S’s abominations,” Elias breathed, sounding more surprised than afraid.

  Jules’s hand closed around hers.

  Elias said, “I don’t sense anything menacing in this display, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” Lana said, confused. The display was creepy, if not menacing. The semitransparent forms writhed in the air as if they were alive: mutant insects, pythanium, two-headed birds, crocodillos, brontskellers, and others she couldn’t identify.

  “Draw on your gem powers,” Elias suggested. “We need to know what’s happening.”

  “I have been, and I’m not sensing any danger,” Jules said. “But the smoke images must mean something. Why are they forming?”

  Lana drew infused foresight. The impressions that followed took her by surprise, raising a more important question than why the smoke was depicting the creatures on the throne. She asked hesitantly, “Could there be a connection between the carvings on the throne and the real creatures?”

  “Very interesting. Your insights align with mine, but where the smoke images fit into the theory, I don’t know,” Elias said. “The creatures on the throne all had gems for eyes. Does that suggest anything to you?”

  Gems held spectacular powers in this world, and when you found them in an object, they were often there for a reason. “Could the gems in the carvings have something to do with bringing the real creatures to life? I know it’s not the same, but the gems on the spell book’s cover weren’t just ornamental—they gave it sentience.”

  Elias looked up at the sky where the dark shapes continued to writhe. “It would not surprise me. I know S created her monsters with gem powers, using a spell.”

  Jules said, “Maybe the carved images on the throne were part of the process, as well as the gems in their eyes.”