Run, Ran. Just go. I don’t care if anyone sees you. Just go, live! A tear crawled down Sarn’s cheek as he stood there, frozen by an entity that could obliterate him if it chose. Please, leave my son alone. He’s just a baby. He’s all I have. Take me instead.
But if Death heard his frantic mental shouts, it ignored them as it reached for his son.
Shut that Portal!
“No!” she shouted.
“What is that thing?”
The Queen of All Trees didn’t answer. She hooked her branches into the heart of that dimming light and grasped the doorway’s frame. Cold metal punched into her trunk, but she kept hauling with all her might and the portal to the Gray Between closed with an explosive pop.
The Queen of All Trees sagged, and Bear let go of her branches. He gave her a sheepish smile.
“Well, that was interesting. What was that thing, anyway?”
“I don’t know.” And the not knowing troubled her. “Whatever it is, it predates me.”
“What does that mean?”
She shook her diminished crown. The struggle had ravaged it. Shiny silver leaves carpeted the ground, and they mixed with the sap oozing out of the widening cracks in her bark.
“Are you—?” Bear faltered unable to finish his question or perhaps the spirit-guide-turned-stuffed-animal just didn’t want to know.
“I will endure as I always have.” She straightened her trunk. Now wasn’t the time to weep or moan. There was a black lumir crystal on the loose. Where are you Aralore? Where is the stone you carry?
Light beaded the Queen of All Trees’ trunk and stars exploded from her branches. They weren’t really stars, just glowing motes with fluffy halos, so they could ride the wind ruffling her remaining leaves. Immediately, some of them winked out as they passed through the cone of that rogue black lumir crystal. It still headed toward Mount Eredren. That was bad.
But there was something off about it. The Queen of All Trees scoured her memory and overlaid its current trajectory on the map of Shayari she carried around with her. Every river, mountain, valley and tree in her country was engraved on her heart.
Where are you, Aralore? I know you’re out there. But She couldn’t sense that girl. Aralore must be too close to the crystal right now. I must get to her if not through the grey between then some other way. I won’t let her destroy my country even if that means breaking the promise I made because there’s no other way.
Stealing herself, the Queen of All Trees glided forward ready to battle the promise itself. She expected pain and welcomed it—no price was too high to save her people. But none came. She sent her roots ahead to probe for the promise. Everything had limits, and it had kept her on a very short leash.
“Where are you going?”
“To stop Aralore.”
“What about the promise? I thought it wouldn’t let you.”
Yeah, that was the strange part. Why was the promise letting her go? Had Aralore broken it first? No, she’s a mere mortal as mundane as they come. If I couldn't break it, then she couldn't either. So why can I head on an intercept course now when before I couldn’t?
“Circumstances must have changed.”
“Changed how?”
Bear struggled to keep up with her. His borrowed body was made for snuggling not running, so he kept face-planting because he was all head and belly. She took pity on him and snaked a branch around his middle and lifted him into her branches.
“Thank you. For a moment there, I thought you were going to leave me in the dust.”
“Not a chance, I could use a spotter. I don’t exactly have eyes.”
No, just finely tuned magical senses which were dulling as she approached the black lumir crystal's event horizon. It was still far enough off that it wasn’t sapping her aura too much, but that was only because she’d drawn that luminous sphere in as close to her trunk as she dared. No sense in giving that stone any more magic to eat than it already had.
“What could have changed? From what you’ve told me about the promise, it only had one condition. Is she strong enough to violate that?”
“Possibly with very strong magic, but she has none.”
So Aralore hadn’t crossed any of the protective circles in Shayari. The promise would prevent her. That was why I made it.
“So what then?” Bear asked. He was reading her mind again.
The Queen of All Trees ran through everything she’d said to Aralore that day and found nothing else. There was only that one condition. What else can nullify that promise? The answer, when it came, was frightening.
“The promise is only in play if Aralore has the crystal.”
“So if the crystal is no longer in her custody, that would nullify the promise, right?”
“Yes.”
“If she doesn’t have it, then who does?” Bear’s button eyes widened in alarm. “Please, not the Adversary. That specter is creepy enough without that thing.”
The Queen of All Trees didn’t answer because she didn't know. If the Adversary has that crystal, then so be it. I will destroy it and banish him.
She stretched out her thoughts seeking the trees near the growing blank spot in her awareness where the black lumir crystal had sucked the life from her land. It was Gaia’s too. Could that capricious goddess help?
“Gaia, I need your help.”
Bear stared at the Queen of All Trees. “Why are you calling her? She was the one who diverted your sister-queen away from that stone, remember?”
That was true, and the Queen of All Trees still had no idea what had become of Shayari. But that immortal could take care of her self. Besides, until this crisis was over, she couldn’t look for her. Shayari is a survivor like me. She'll be all right until I can get to her.
“She may not help, but it can't hurt to ask.”
And the Queen of All Trees was weakening as the miles dwindled between her and that rogue stone. I must hold on or all I’ve worked and hoped for will never be.
“Gaia’s spell unraveled pretty fast when it passed through the black lumir crystal’s sphere of influence. That might have weakened her.” Bear laid a paw against her bark. “She may not be able to answer you.”
“You think that crystal destroyed her?”
The Queen of All Trees hadn’t considered that. Apparently, Bear had. He turned troubled eyes on her.
“Is that even possible?”
“It might be under the right circumstances.”
“Like if no one believes in her anymore?”
“If an old god only had his personal store of power left to live on then maybe, but Gaia still has a strong following in some parts of Shayari.”
“But she’s tied to the land, and the black lumir crystal is draining it. Won't that take a toll on her despite the influx of power from her believers?”
Much as the Queen of All Trees hated to admit that, Bear might have a point. Belief was power. It had animated the gods of the fallen pantheons and still powered some of them today long after other deities had superseded them.
Shayari was still straddling that line between the old gods and the One True God. Was there enough belief to keep Gaia alive, so she could help? Assuming of course, that goddess wanted to help, which she might not. Gaia could be fickle like that when it came to the troubles of mortals.
“There are many who follow the old ways in Shayari, but I don’t know how regular their devotion is. So we might be on our own.”
Especially given the recent missionary activity. Even Mount Eredren had a church and two full-time priests. A whisper vibrated the ground under her roots. The Queen of All Trees paused, and the forest around her held its breath.
“Gaia?”
“I’m here, Queen of All Trees.”
“Can you bury the black lumir crystal?”
Though even as she asked that question, the Queen of All Trees regretted it. If what she and Bear had speculated were correct, doing so would destroy Gaia and devastate her land. But the question had
been asked, so she waited for a response.
The earth in front of her mounded up into lips, a pert nose and two staring eyes. Six good strong Shayarin oaks backed away, giving Gaya more room to compose her face. Grass flowed like green hair around Gaia's head, framing it. They softened her harsh features.
“No, mortals removed that crystal from its tomb. They must return it. Only its liberator can enslave it again. That is the law.” Gaia rolled the salt-and-pepper quartz rocks standing in for her eyes skyward and stared straight up at a black speck.
The Queen of All Trees had shrunken down since the black lumir crystal had started gnawing on her aura, so she was only a tenth of her normal thousand-foot height. Most of her children were double and triple her current height, but she needed to conserve her strength. Packing her refulgence into a much smaller frame helped slow the magic-loss.
Bear shaded his button eyes. “What is that? Some bizarre amalgamation of a bird and a man?”
“It’s a wraith, isn't it?”
“Yes, a servant of a dark lord, and the one who started this mess.”
The one who started this mess. Gaia’s pronouncement rang several bells in the Queen of All Trees' mind, and she remembered a man with a shadowed soul. He'd come when she'd called, carrying a dark secret and a budding regret in his divided heart. Dirk had dropped to his knees, stricken by the sight of the dying child-tree, cradled in her branches.
“Oh, God, what have I done?” he'd asked her.
His question had struck her like a hail of arrows. How had he not known? Before she could answer, the shadows had reclaimed him again, and he'd been lost to her. Then, he'd still been fully human, but now he wasn’t. That was only yesterday. So much had changed between then and now.
Are you lost to me, son of Shayari? The Queen of All Trees waved a branch, and her children stepped to the side, parting this section of the forest. They created a corridor that ran for miles to a dead zone in her senses where the ground dropped sharply off a cliff. That area had always been strange. But she pushed that out of mind for the moment and studied the sky. Indeed, a vulture-winged black man-shape flew above that narrow river valley. His circuit took him over virgin forest as-yet untouched by the menace he’d unleashed.
“Call him, my children, call the one known as Dirk to me,” she said to the trees surrounding her, and they transmitted her words to their neighbors.
One by one, they joined in the call, using the same song that had lured him to her once before. “Come and see. Oh, come and see—what your dark deeds have done. ‘Cause I’ll be there. Yes, I’ll be there to show you—to show you. So, come and see. Oh, come and see ...”
His trajectory altered as her children broadcasted her call, boosting it, so it cut through the Adversary’s hold. Would it be enough? He swung around again completing another circuit, but this one was wider than the last one, taking him closer to her. Was that by accident or by choice?
“Even if I could convince him to turn against his master, he’s no longer mortal.”
“Wraiths can still die. Their souls are enmeshed in something like flesh. Thus, they are something like mortal.”
“His fate is tied to that stone, isn’t it?” Bear interjected.
“Yes. Since he freed it that is so.” Gaia closed her eyes and moss slid over the rocks she’d been looking out of. It was an eerie but oddly beautiful sight.
“So, it might work. Won’t that stone destroy him?”
“Yes, but it will take longer than for a regular mortal. His flesh is more durable because it was designed to take more damage.” Gaia’s features flattened. The former goddess was withdrawing. She must be exhausted from the strain of manifesting with that magic-stealing rock only a few miles away.
Its event horizon was much closer, but it wasn’t draining the Queen of All Trees as much as it should be. Something must be muting it—either some old-world spell like the mirror shield she’d used to contain it in ages past, or the presence of its antithesis, the variant of white lumir called sun crystals for their intense white glow. Anything was possible in Shayari.
“I must rest. I can’t do any more for now.”
“Go in peace, Earth Mother, and thank you.”
Gaia inclined what was left of her head then let go and the ground smoothed back out to its usual topography. A few brave oaks poked the place her face had occupied only moments before with their curious roots, testing whether it was safe to return to their former places. Her children could move about if they chose, but many preferred to stay where she’d placed them unless there was a reason to move. Since there was nothing for them to do but watch and wait, she inclined her crown to them as she passed.
Two oaks and four pines fell in behind her as a kind of honor guard. The Queen of All Trees didn’t bother dismissing them because they wouldn’t go unless she made them, and she couldn’t spare any of her remaining power on such a trivial thing as that.
Dirk passed by in ever-widening circles as her children kept up the chant, calling him. But he didn’t come. When the Queen of All Trees was a mile out from that valley, she saw why. Black rays shot skyward, but they were channeled upward by a pair of steep cliffs. Now that was interesting.
I see you, but you can’t get to me. Nor to any of her children because there were no enchanted trees in that narrow valley nor within a half-mile of it. There was only a thin ribbon of rocky shore on either side of a river down there. Nothing that needed any guarding.
A mile on from there, the western wall of that valley rose up to a flat-topped mountain that had always made her feel vaguely uneasy. None of her children would get within a half mile of it. Something about it made her bark tingle and crawl a thousand times worse then when she crossed to other worlds. There was also that chilling feeling of otherness about that mountain, and her forest was extra dense to keep people from getting within a mile of it just in case. In Shayari, it was always better to let sleeping magic lie. Disturbing it was never wise.
But the river flowed under part of it, and since this was Shayari, where water flowed freely and abundantly, it likely fed a subterranean tributary. I must prevent that stone from getting to that plateau.
Because if she didn’t, it might unleash something worse. That mountain might imprison an old-world monster that predated her for all she knew. Or a gateway to hell. Better to keep the stone away from it and either reseal it under Mount Eredren or find another blessed place to hold it just to be safe.
So the Queen of All Trees did the only thing she could think of. She broke her own rule and called to him directly.
“Come to me, Dirk, and I will help you throw off the chains of your master.”
She raised her branches high, and her children parted further widening the clearing around her. Her bark glowed bright, turning her into a beacon cleaving through the dark. And Dirk was the black moth drawn to her light. He pivoted mid-air and dove toward her flaming crown.
“Come to me, and I will set you free.” And you can tell me who controls the black lumir crystal.
The Trouble with Sisters
[References events in His Angelic Keeper and the forthcoming His Angelic Keeper: Hidden]
“Let go of me!” Sovvan shouted as she struggled against the angel hauling her bodily through a gap between worlds. But Misriah, her brother’s guardian angel, was resolute, and she must be part granite because that warrior angel took every blow and kept pulling. Or maybe I’m not as strong as she is. After all, I’m just some kind of weird hybrid, not a full-fledged angel.
“I can’t. You left a mess in the Gray Between, which you’re supposed to be fixing, not interfering in your brother’s life. Ever since we escaped from that pocket dimension, you’ve been running all over creation instead of doing something about the problem you caused.”
And that problem was upsetting the balance. Misriah didn’t have to say it. Sovvan could feel something—a slight tug as if everything was sliding out of true, but she had no idea how to fix that—yet.
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“Yeah, well, if you’d let me check on my brother like I wanted to do in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to ‘go running all over creation’ to find him. It’s not like this whole angel thing came with an instruction manual. I’m still learning as I go. And in case you forgot, time moves differently here.”
“You’re stalling.”
“No, I’m not.” Sovvan elbowed Miss High-and-Mighty and regretted it when her elbow struck armor instead of flesh. Damn her. Misriah had armored up during their scuffle. That was so unfair.
“Please, let me go? Don’t you care Death is menacing your mortal—the man you’re supposed to be guarding who happens to be my twin brother?”
“Don’t you think I want to?”
That shut Sovvan up for a second as she processed this reversal in attitudes. “Then why don’t you?”
“Because I can’t. I’m bound to my duty and that duty is to keep you from interfering. Their lives must take the courses they set.”
“I’m not messing with that or their free will. I just want to give them a fighting chance. So let me, you don’t want them to die anymore than I do.”
Misriah slowed. She was getting through to the stubborn angel at last.
“Don’t you get it? I can’t let you go. It’s not that I don’t want to. Believe me, I do, but I just can’t.”
“Why can’t you? Is this more of that crap about the ‘Balance’ because it seems like it’s only enforced when convenient. The Adversary has walked all over it, and no one’s tried to stop him accept my brother and a giant tree, and that’s pretty sad when you think about it.”
The truth struck Misriah hard, and the warrior angel flinched at the implied inequality.
“That’s right, no one’s forcing the Adversary or his minions to respect the Balance or punishing him when he doesn't. It seems like there’s a double standard. Your side is handicapped by this ‘Balance’ thing while the true enemy can just waltz around doing whatever he wants without any repercussions and—” Sovvan paused mid-diatribe as the gray between, the bane of her existence, took shape around her. “Wait, when you said, 'you can’t,' you meant it—you must uphold the ‘Balance’ at all costs.”
Curse Breaker: Sundered Page 16
