Tarnin looked up at her approach and gave her a hard smile. “I thought maybe we had lost you,” he said.
“I thought so too.”
“Stay close. It is very easy to get lost down here.” He turned and gestured and the six spirit-kin with the wooden spears raced on ahead and disappeared.
They continued on, going deeper into the earth. The cavern ended after a time. They passed side passages, some with streams gushing out of them. There were places where the ceiling overhead pressed low and others where it soared out of sight. Gradually the crystals thinned and stalactites and stalagmites began to appear. Water dripped unceasingly from the stalactites. Many of the formations were clear, like huge icicles, but others were a translucent yellow or pink. When Shakre accidentally banged into one it gave off a clear chime, like crystal.
The formations became increasingly varied and bizarre. Some were huge, broad things, where the slow deposits formed arched openings and fantastic pinnacles. Some were large enough, the openings in them deep enough, that she wondered if ronhym lived within them. But she saw no sign of movement so if there were ronhym there they were staying out of sight. Maybe the ronhym would just stay hidden and let them pass through unhindered. It was something to hope for.
That hope was dashed an hour or two later when Shakre saw some Takare pointing overhead. They were in an area where the ceiling wasn’t too high up, maybe twenty feet or so. Most of the stalactites had grown down to the point where they joined with the stalagmites, forming columns. The columns varied from the diameter of her little finger to huge things that it would take several people to put their arms around. They seemed almost deliberately placed there to support the ceiling.
A black shape could be seen moving across the ceiling toward them, running on all four legs, alternately appearing and disappearing between the columns. Tarnin and Kirtet stopped and stood side by side, watching the creature. Youlin moved up beside them. Shakre moved through the ranks of Takare and got closer to the front, where she could see and hear what was happening.
When it got close, the creature scurried down a column to the floor. It had a long tail and broad, clawed feet. Its head was tapered, its eyes very large. Its skin seemed to be covered in very fine scales.
The ronhym stopped a short distance from the Takare and looked up at them. It began to shudder and as it did so it changed shape. Its tail receded, its hind legs grew longer, its front legs shorter. Its head rounded, the snout withdrawing. Seconds later what stood before the Takare was man-like in shape, though slightly built and only about chest high on the Takare.
“You may not pass this way, Takare. The deep ways are closed to you.” Though its voice was very strange, to Shakre it sounded male.
Youlin started to reply, but Kirtet put his hand on her arm and shook his head. Tarnin spoke instead.
“We have been looking for you. We require your help against a mutual enemy.”
The ronhym looked him over. “You speak of Gulagh. The Guardian has not proven itself an enemy of the ronhym.”
Tarnin crossed his arms. “It is a foul creature and not to be trusted. In time it will turn on you. Ally with us and we will defeat it together.”
The ronhym did not hesitate with his reply. “Never again. The Takare have proven themselves to be faithless allies.”
“It was a long time ago,” Tarnin replied. “It is possible a mistake was made.”
The creature stared unblinking at him. “We would call it other than a mistake. We would call it betrayal. You tortured and killed one of us after we trusted you, after we agreed to help you against one of your enemies. An enemy who did not threaten us.”
“He refused to help,” Tarnin said through gritted teeth. Shakre could feel his anger starting to rise. “Was I supposed to simply stand by and watch my people die?”
“He tried to save you. The power within a relif crystal cannot be controlled by a living creature. Stone power is too great for your kind.”
“He could have used the crystal himself,” Tarnin hissed.
“The ronhym do not war on others. We have been on this world even before the Shapers. We have seen the consequences of conflict and so we choose to remain outside. We observe, nothing more.”
“I will give you one more chance. Help us to destroy that thing and you will never hear from us again.”
“Our answer remains unchanged. We will not help you, nor will we allow you to pass through our lands. You would be wise to reconsider your decision to attack the Guardian. It is an ancient, powerful creature. Your weapons cannot hurt it, therefore, you cannot defeat it. Accept that it has stolen your home and move on.”
“Never,” Kirtet said fiercely. “We will never abandon Ankha del’Ath to that thing.”
“That is your choice,” the ronhym said, inclining his head slightly. “But you will attack it by another route.”
Shakre saw Tarnin make a gesture behind his back. A spirit-kin to her right looked off to the side and repeated the gesture. She felt sick suddenly. Here it came. Tarnin had said the ronhym would help, one way or another.
Her first thought was to call out, warn the ronhym of his danger, but she remembered Tarnin’s threat and was suddenly very aware of the spirit-kin that flanked her. They would kill her without hesitation.
There was nothing she could do but watch.
“Is this your final decision?” Tarnin asked mildly. The anger he’d shown a minute ago seemed to have subsided.
“It is.”
“Then there is nothing we can do but leave,” Tarnin said. He and Kirtet turned as if to leave. The rest of the Takare began to turn around also. The ronhym shuddered and began flowing back into his normal shape.
When he was about halfway through the transition, the spirit-kin wielding the wooden spears burst out from where they had been hiding and charged forward on cat feet.
The ronhym started to turn, one arm coming up.
The lead spirit-kin stabbed with his spear. The point entered the ronhym’s back, where a human’s shoulder blade would be. The force was great enough that the spear went completely through the ronhym emissary, emerging from his chest.
The ronhym cried out, a high, mournful keening. He stumbled forward, hands coming up to grab clumsily at the barbed spear head.
The spirit-kin jerked the spear back so the barbs dug into the ronhym’s chest. With a sweep of one foot he kicked the ronhym’s legs out from under him.
It all happened in the space of heartbeats. The ronhym was on the ground moaning. Instinctively, Shakre started to step forward, but the spirit-kin on either side of her clamped onto her arms and restrained her.
Tarnin and Kirtet walked back to the ronhym. “The Ominati, useless idiots that they were, did learn some useful things. They learned that you are weakest when changing shape. They also learned that you have a curious vulnerability to wood,” Tarnin said, crouching beside the ronhym. “It seems that you cannot be hurt by metal or stone weapons of any kind, but wood pierces you easily. They also learned that it causes you great pain.” He tapped the haft of the spear, bringing forth a fresh moan of pain from the creature. “It seems they were correct.”
Shakre tried to shake off the hands holding her. Tarnin looked up at her. “Do not interfere, Windrider.”
“Surely there is a better way,” she said.
“And I tried to find it. You were here. You heard. I would have preferred they aid us willingly, but when they did not…” He shrugged. “If you will remember, I said that they would aid us one way or another.”
Shakre looked at Youlin, but the young Pastwalker refused to meet her eye. “At least let me tend to him,” she said. When Tarnin did not respond she added, “He will be no use to you as a hostage if he’s dead.”
Tarnin considered this, then nodded. Shakre hurried forward. In truth, she had no idea if she could do anything to help or not. But she had to try.
At a gesture from Tarnin, the spirit-kin holding the spear used it to turn the ronh
ym on his side, which brought another moan. Shakre knelt down beside him. He looked at her with large, liquid eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. The ronhym did not reply.
Shakre looked at the wound. There was no blood or anything at all leaking from it, but the flesh around the wound had turned gray. She held out her hands, stilled her thoughts and went beyond. Around her the flows of LifeSong sustaining herself and the Takare came into view, pulsing gently, along with the gentle glows of their akirmas. There were no flows connected to the ronhym. Nor did he have an akirma. In fact, he looked exactly the same except that his eyes glowed.
There is nothing you can do.
Shakre sat back, surprised. She looked around. No one else had responded. No one else had heard.
She left beyond and stood up. “I don’t think he’s in immediate danger,” she told Tarnin.
“Good. Now get out of the way.” To the man holding the spear Tarnin said, “Get him on his feet.”
The man jerked on the spear and Shakre said, “Wait! You don’t have to do it like that. Just ask him to stand up.”
The ronhym gave her an unreadable look, then climbed to his feet gingerly.
“It is true what I said,” Tarnin said to him when he was standing. “I would have preferred that you helped us of your own will. A willing ally is always better.”
The ronhym straightened as much as he could. It was clearly difficult for him to stand upright, halfway between forms as he was. “What do you want?”
“Guidance through your lands, for one thing.”
The ronhym nodded almost imperceptibly. “I will do so. But that is not all, is it?”
“No. It’s not. I also require a relif crystal.”
“Which you cannot use.”
“No, but you can.”
The ronhym stared at him unblinking. “And if I refuse, you will torture and kill me.”
Tarnin nodded. “Something like that.”
“You want us to unleash the power of the crystal on the Guardian.”
“I do. It will work, won’t it?”
“I do not know. It has never been done. But at least it will weaken the creature considerably.”
Tarnin looked at Kirtet. “What do you think?”
“I think if we get an opening we can chop that thing into pieces.”
The ronhym spoke again. “Once the Guardian is defeated, you will leave us be.”
“You have my word on that,” Tarnin said.
“This is not worth so much as you seem to think.”
Tarnin gave him a cold smile. “Nevertheless, it is all you have.”
The ronhym looked down as if thinking. Then he looked back at Tarnin. “It will be as you say.”
“I am sure you have more of your kind hidden nearby,” Tarnin said. “Call and tell them to fetch the crystal.”
“The crystal is buried deep. It will take some time to acquire,” the ronhym replied.
“You have until we make it out of here.”
“This will not be enough time.”
“Unfortunately for you, I don’t believe you. I know that your kind can move through stone as if it were water. Have the crystal for us by the time we emerge on the other side of the mountains or we will begin torturing you.”
The ronhym stared at him for a long moment. Then he turned his head to the side and called out loudly in a series of clicks and whistles. There was an answering call, then silence.
Tarnin looked at Shakre. “Harsh times call for harsh measures. It has ever been thus. Had Genjinn accepted this truth, all those years ago, we would not be in these straits. The world would be a very different place under our rule.”
Shakre stared at him. “Okay,” she said at last. There was nothing else she could say.
Sixty-five
“Legate, we have arrived,” one of the spirit-kin scouts said, saluting. Shakre peered past the scout, hoping to see some glimmer of light, but saw nothing. She couldn’t wait to get back above ground. By her estimate they had been in the deep ways for more than a day, though it was hard to tell for sure. After capturing the ronhym they’d walked for long hours through terrain that was often very difficult. When they finally stopped to sleep, she’d basically collapsed on the spot and slept like the dead until she was roused to continue on.
There’d been no sign of other ronhym the whole way, no evidence they were trying to hinder the Takare in any way. But now, as the Takare started eagerly toward the exit, a ronhym appeared in their path. It didn’t approach as the first one had. Rather, it seemed to simply flow up out of the ground right in front of them, like a cork bobbing to the surface of the water.
Tarnin held up his hand and the Takare halted. Weapons appeared in every hand. The spirit-kin around Shakre looked uneasily at the ground. How would they fight an enemy that came up from underground?
“What is it?” Tarnin asked. “Do you have the crystal?”
“We do,” the ronhym replied. This one sounded female. She didn’t look at the captive, sagging limply on the spear that skewered him. The captive ronhym was not doing well, that much Shakre could tell. She’d checked on him when they stopped to rest and discovered that the gray area around the wound had grown larger and the flesh closest to the wound had turned completely white and was starting to crumble away.
“Where is it?”
“It is in our possession, but it will be some time yet before we can deliver it to you.”
“You were told to have the crystal for us by the time we left your lands.”
“Yes, I know. But transporting a relif crystal is a dangerous task. Even we are not immune to them and if the object is not handled carefully there will be catastrophic consequences.”
“How long?”
“No more than an hour, as you measure time.”
Tarnin and Kirtet exchanged looks, then Tarnin nodded. “You have one hour.”
The ronhym did not reply, but simply slid back down into the ground and disappeared.
“I believe they are up to something,” Kirtet said. “They mean to betray us.”
“It is what I would do,” Tarnin agreed.
They continued on, every warrior extra vigilant. A few minutes later, to Shakre’s great relief, a dim glow appeared up ahead. Fortunately, this entrance was much easier than the one they’d used to enter the deep ways. They only had to pass through a small waterfall and wade across a shallow pool. Shakre walked gratefully out into the sunshine, thinking she had never seen anything so beautiful before.
They were on a thickly-wooded slope. Behind them loomed the mass of the Truebane Mountains. Before and below them a long, wide valley could be glimpsed through the trees.
As the last of the Takare crossed the shallow pool, a grinding noise came from behind the waterfall. The warriors spun toward the sound, wondering if this was a surprise attack.
The opening behind the waterfall collapsed with a crash, buried in tons of stone. This entrance to the deep ways would never be used again. Whatever happened from here forward, the Takare would not be leaving that way.
Tarnin led them down the slope. As they passed through a meadow, Shakre could see that they were near one end of the long valley. Wreckers Gate was visible to her right less than a mile away. There was a sizable lake in the distance to the left, near the center of the valley. Most of the valley floor was thickly forested, with only a few grassy clearings here and there. Most of the buildings the Takare had erected were gone, wooden structures that rotted away centuries before. Jutting up from the forest here and there were a few stone buildings, trees growing up through them, blankets of moss and vines covering them. Cities had never been the Takare way. Spending most of their time outdoors, they built primarily simple wooden homes.
They headed to the right and continued descending. A few minutes later they came to a spot where they could see clearly. Over near Wreckers Gate a fairly large area had been recently cleared of trees. Dozens of tents and several crude wooden buildings had b
een erected on one side of the clearing.
In the center of the clearing stood Gulagh. The Guardian wasn’t moving. It appeared to just be standing there, its back to them, looking at Wreckers Gate.
All around it, lying scattered on the ground, were its followers. None of them were moving.
“I think they’re dead,” Kirtet said wonderingly. He looked at Tarnin. “Why?”
Tarnin shrugged. “Who knows what is in the mind of that creature? All that matters is that we destroy it.”
Shakre stared down at the bodies, a sense of unease growing inside her. She saw a few dressed in the clothing of the Takare, those that had made it inside the Gate before she knocked Gulagh down with the wind.
She found herself listening for the wind, but the air was utterly still. She couldn’t even hear any birds or insects. It was like the whole valley was holding its breath, waiting for something. Was it a trap? But if so, why would the Guardian kill all of its own followers?
The ronhym flowed up from underground in front of Tarnin a few minutes later. In her hands, the ronhym held a dark yellow crystal, which quickly began to turn orange as she held it out to Tarnin.
Shakre instinctively took a step back, as did most of the spirit-kin. There was something profoundly unsettling about the thing, a sense of being too close to power that was unbelievably vast.
Tarnin held his ground, though it clearly took effort to do so and he did not reach out to touch the thing. His expression grew suspicious. “It is cracked,” he said. It was true. The surface of the crystal was spider webbed with cracks.
“It was the only one nearby. If you wish another, it will take several days to retrieve it.” The ronhym stood motionlessly, the crystal lying across her hands.
“I don’t believe you,” Kirtet said.
“Your belief does not change what is,” she replied. “You may believe this though: this crystal contains enough power to weaken and perhaps destroy the Guardian.” She paused. “If it does not suit you, we can deliver another, but it will take several days.”
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