by Sean Hinn
“Oh, for Fury’s sake, stand up man.”
Jarriah forced himself to his feet with some effort, cowed by the sheer power of the amulet. Sartean snatched it from his grasp and gave it to Nia, who quickly fastened it about Sartean’s neck.
“Mmm,” Sartean moaned. “Exquisite. I can feel it filling.”
“Not filling, Master D’Avers,” Nia corrected. “Feeding.”
I could have used this recently, he observed silently, lamenting his arrogance in facing Mila Felsin so unprepared. “You have done well, but I do not know if this will be sufficient. The enemy we face is formidable. Prepare me another.”
The woman shook her head as she pulled the hood back over her head.
“Only one. Only today.”
“You would refuse me, Daughter of Kal? I trained you. You would still be handmaiden to some nob if not for Kehrlia.”
“Only one,” she repeated. “It is law.”
“Hmph. One would think your mistress would make allowances, considering. And how does my mother fare? Enjoying her position as the foremost fruit in your half-baked unholy pie?”
“Our mistress fares as she must,” Nia replied.
“I assume she is aware of your presence here.”
A slight pause preceded Nia’s reply. “She is aware we are at Kehrlia, yes. But what you intend to ask is whether we carry her words for you. We do not. Such was her bargain.”
Sartean waved his hand, dismissive. “Bah. You religious types are sheep, slaves to some ancient text. Begone, all of you.”
“There is the matter of your own bargain,” another of the four said firmly. The two who had not spoken stepped forward. One withdrew a small blade from her sleeve; the other a small wooden bowl.
Sartean sighed. “Very well. Jarriah, hold out your hand.”
“No,” Daughter Nia demanded. “It must be yours.”
“As if it matters!” Sartean bellowed. He thrust out his hand. “Get it over with!”
The woman with the bowl grasped Sartean’s wrist firmly in one hand as the other held the bowl underneath. The woman with the knife pried his fingers open. The four spoke a single word in unison.
“Indebted.”
The woman with the knife stabbed viciously at the meaty flesh beneath Sartean’s thumb. Sartean cried out; blood streamed from the wound, filling the bowl quickly. “Damn you woman, did you need to stab me? Would a cut not have sufficed?”
Nia stepped forward, wrapping Sartean’s hand in a wet cloth that bore a pungent, acrid odor. Within a few breaths the bleeding had stopped.
“Our bargain was unambiguous,” Nia stated plainly. “To do as you ask, the Veil must be pierced, and thus so must the flesh.”
“Fine! Is there anything else, or do you require a bone as well, for your next amulet?”
“Something shall be required, as was our bargain,” Nia replied. “A service of equal value.
“Is that not what the blood is for?” Sartean demanded.
Nia shook her head. “The blood is your contract, Sartean D’Avers. You are bound to a favor to Kal, in this life or the next. He will call you when he has need. For now, hear me well: the Daughters shall facilitate the Livening until dawn breaks tomorrow. The amulet will be of use to you until then only, and not a moment longer. One stone shall Name the enemy you seek, and using that name, one stone shall Call him. The last shall Liven you and grant you great power, for a time. Use them well.”
“Use them well,” the others repeated. Daughter Nia did not wait for permission to leave. Her sisters followed.
“Superstitious fools,” Sartean remarked when they were out of earshot. “‘You are bound, in this life or the next.’ To whom? A glowing ball in the night sky? Fools.”
“Master, the power in that amulet–”
“It is magic, Jarriah. Nothing more. The Daughters possess a handful of secrets that are not yet common knowledge among wizards. Was not the act of infusing a gem with elemental power a mystery to you once?”
Jarriah nodded. “Yes. You are right. It can be nothing more than that. But… so much power! From where does it come? Your mother?”
The Master of Kehrlia struck the young Incantor on the side of the head with a brutal backhand. Jarriah fell to the floor, dazed.
“Do not be so daft, Jarriah. It is a called a Livening. It comes from the living. And if you ever mention my mother again, I will roast you alive.” Sartean reached down and yanked Jarriah to his feet by the collar. “Now come. There is no time to waste.”
XVIII: THE ELMS OF EYRE
Feel that?” Lucan asked Aria.
His voice startled her; they had been riding beside one another in silence for half a day. “I… no, I don’t think I do,” she replied, puzzled.
“The air. It’s a bit… thicker, isn’t it?”
Aria looked around, allowing herself to sense their surroundings.
“You’re right. Thicker. And sweeter. Look.” Aria pointed to the dry ground.
“When did it stop snowing?”
Aria shook her head. “No idea.”
Lucan nodded towards the trail ahead; the Vicaris had called a halt, and Mikallis pulled Triumph alongside her. “Looks like Trellia and Captain Arseface noticed something, too.”
“Lucan!” Aria scolded quietly, making no attempt to hide a smirk.
“You’re right. I just uttered a terrible offense against arses everywhere.” Lucan bowed dramatically in the saddle. “My apologies, Princess.”
Aria smothered a snicker, but not before Lucan saw that she did.
The pair joined Trellia and Mikallis at the end of the trail, beyond which a narrow footpath led into a thickly wooded forest. J’arn and Shyla caught up a moment later.
“We are just outside the boundary of the lands of Eyre,” Trellia began. “Just ahead there will be a small clearing, where we will be expected to make camp and wait.”
“Wait fer what, Lady?” Shyla asked.
“Not for what,” Trellia replied, “For whom. If we are to be allowed passage through the Elms, an emissary will come.”
“How long before they come?” asked J’arn.
“No way to tell, but it could be two days, even three.”
“Fine with me,” Lucan declared, dismounting Hope and stretching to touch his toes. “Hope they make it four.”
Captain Mikallis shook his head as he also dismounted. Lucan saw the gesture and held up a hand, speaking before the other could.
“I know, we’re in a hurry. But notice this air? It tastes… well, it tastes right. Like air ought to taste. It’s different. No ash. No bitter wind.” Lucan looked to the tree line ahead. “The trees still have leaves. The spoil of Fang hasn’t reached here. It’s… well, I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind a few days here before we go off to find our destinies, or whatever it is that’s in store for us.”
Lucan moved to help Shyla dismount Spirit. J’arn slid down the other side.
Trellia replied, her tone kind. “Wait until you see the rest, Lucan. We are not even yet within the Eyre. This is nothing.”
The six led their horses single file up the tree-lined path, Trellia in the lead. Wolf barked happily, darting between hoof and foot to make his way to the front of the procession. A few dozen paces in, the path widened into a clearing, as Trellia predicted, but unlike any clearing any of the companions had ever experienced, save Trellia.
Just enough light filtered through the canopy above to reach the small, leafy plants that carpeted the ground; a light breeze made its way from one side of the clearing to the other, lending the illusion that a sleeping beast beneath their feet rolled beneath a vast, green blanket. The land was flat where trees did not grow, but where they did grow, they grew thick and tall. The six looked up and without exception felt a sense of vertigo.
“Mawbottom, how tall are they?” Shyla asked no one.
Aria and Trellia replied in once voice.
“‘As tall as they must be’,” they sang. The women shared a priv
ate laugh.
“Care to sing the rest, Aria?” asked the Vicaris.
Aria smiled broadly. “Not just now. Perhaps later.”
“I pray that you will,” Mikallis urged. “There is no sound sweeter to me than your voice in song.”
“Aww, well ain’t that a thing to say,” Shyla teased. “Quite a charmer, ain’t yeh?”
“Oh, he is that!” Aria said, joining in Shyla’s fun.
Mikallis laughed; J’arn and Lucan joined him. The six bantered lightly as they tied the horses and removed their saddles. Even Lucan and Mikallis managed to get along, exchanging inane comments without malice or sarcasm. When the work of unpacking their gear was complete, Trellia gathered them close in the center of the clearing where a dozen ancient moss-covered stones protruded from the ground in a circle. Trellia took a seat atop one; the others chose seats as well.
“We are being offered a grace, it would seem,” she said. “The sense of joy and amity you all feel is a gift from the land, and it is not always given. Be glad; the Elms welcome you.”
Lucan turned to Mikallis to find him wearing a wide grin.
“I have never seen you smile before, Captain. It is a good look on you.”
Mikallis clapped Lucan on the back. “Perhaps we will not always be rivals, Lucan.”
“I would like that,” Lucan replied, standing again. “I’m hungry. Who’s hungry? I’ll start a fire.”
“No!” Trellia warned. “No fire, not ever within the Elms or the Eyre. It is the bane of our hosts. We may use magic to warm our food, if we must, but not so much as a spark. Do you all hear me?”
Five heads nodded.
“Aria,” asked Shyla, “could yeh make some more of them pockets yeh made that one time?”
Aria nodded. “Cheesepouches! Of course! Come, we will do it together; I will show you how to heat them, if you’d care to practice your magic.”
Each of the company busied themselves; J’arn and Trellia pitching tents, Lucan and Mikallis brushing horses, Aria and Shyla preparing food. The light of day began to fade just as they sat down to eat.
“Before we eat,” Trellia said, “we must signal to the Airies that we have come. They may very well know we are here already, but they may not.”
“How do we do that?” J’arn asked. “Ye said we can’t light a fire.”
“We can do better than that,” Trellia said. “Watch.” The Vicaris brought her palms together before her chest, bowed her head for a moment and took a breath. When she pulled her hands apart, a brightly glowing orb of golden light took shape; with a flick of her wrist, the orb flew overhead, higher and higher, past the tops of the trees. At one point it finally stopped, hovering.
“That should do the trick,” she said. “Now, for our own use.” Trellia brought her hands together again; Lucan stood to address her.
“May I do it, Trellia?”
She turned to the young man. “Oh. Well, of course, here, let me show–”
Before Trellia could finish, seven scintillating orbs of multicolored light, each the size of a fist, flew from Lucan’s open palms. They moved around the camp, each coming to a rest above one of the companions, all except the one made for Wolf: his darted and bounded playfully around their barking friend, who jumped and pawed at his new plaything with glee. The others wore alternating expressions of awe as Lucan answered the question they were all preparing to ask.
“I just knew I could do it. I feel…” Lucan paused. “Yes, I feel like I could do almost anything right now. Any bit of magic you could think of. Don’t you all feel the same?”
The others exchanged glances and turned back to Lucan, heads shaking.
“Aw, come on, this air! Don’t you just feel it? Aria, you feel it, don’t you?”
Aria shook her head. “I feel that it is warmer here, and the air is cleaner, but no. I do not feel as if my magic is stronger.”
Trellia interjected. “Would you try something for me, Lucan?”
Lucan nodded. “Sure!”
“Try to hover a bit off the ground.”
Aria objected. “Vicaris, is that not–”
Trellia held up a hand. “Just a bit, now. Just for a moment.”
Lucan chewed his lip briefly and closed his eyes, imagining himself floating, trying to puzzle out how he might accomplish it.
“Lucan!” Aria’s voice called from below.
Lucan opened his eyes to find he was hovering ten feet off the ground. When the realization struck, the spell was broken, and he fell like a stone. Trellia was prepared; a spell of her own arrested his fall and set him gently back on the ground.
“Whoa! That was fun!” Lucan’s face shone like a child’s on Winterwind morning.
“Was it difficult?” Aria asked. “Are you not exhausted?”
Lucan shrugged. “Well, no. Should I be?”
“Remarkable,” Trellia said.
“I’d say!” Shyla agreed. “Luc, how’d yeh do that? Can yeh show me?”
Lucan shook his head. “I mean, I dunno, I just thought it!”
The companions peppered Lucan with questions and challenges, eager to discover of what else he might be capable, but Trellia put an early end to the discussion when Shyla asked, serious as can be, if he would fly with her above the tree line to have a look around.
“We will learn more about Lucan’s abilities, as well as your own, in due time,” she said. “I would prefer not to press–”
A thunderous, earsplitting roar from above bent the branches of trees downwards, shredding the calm of the clearing and sending the companions to their knees. All eyes looked to Trellia; shouted questions went unheard, the ringing in their ears made hearing impossible. The Vicaris weaved her hands in a frantic yet intricate pattern; in a few moments the sharp ring was reduced to a tolerable hum.
“Horses!” she managed to exclaim before the next deafening roar. As one they made for their tied mounts, establishing their Bonds before the horses could injure themselves. Shyla called to Wolf, as loud as she could; he was nowhere to be found. Something enormous raked at the canopy above; a shower of leaves and branches fell to the floor of the clearing.
“Stay with Spirit!” J’arn shouted to Shyla. He made for the tents, where his axes lay, tripping after a few steps on a root, the conjured lights proving insufficiently bright in the chaos. Lucan followed, helping J’arn back to his feet and quickly retrieving Redemption from his own tent. Another roar tore through the air as Lucan buckled the weapon to his waist, followed by a great tearing sound as the beast snapped one of the great ancient elms in two.
It was impossible to know which way the tree was falling. Lucan quickly conjured another set of orbs to light the clearing. He saw that the tree was falling away from them, mercifully, but what he saw in the space where it had been was a thing of nightmares.
A black atrocity of scales and fangs and claws hung suspended between flapping leather wings, its spiked head cocked to the side as a coal black eye appraised the scattering creatures before it. The trees were still too thick for the abomination to descend, but its thick, whipping tail was quickly making short work of the canopy.
Wind! Trellia’s voice sounded sharply within the minds of the companions. You must summon wind, if you can! Prevent it from landing!
Aria knew she could do no such thing. However, she knew Trellia could, and she knew how to support her through a Link. She braced her hands on the Vicaris shoulders and a moment later, a great gust of air was routed directly towards the beast. Their effort was rewarded with a mind-breaking wail of defiance, but the beast did not retreat.
Mikallis knew his usefulness was limited; he focused his attention on the horses as he stood protectively beside Aria.
Shyla split her concentration between calming the horses and calling to Wolf, who she could sense cowering somewhere nearby, resisting the urge to flee, wanting only to make it to Shyla, to protect her. No! Run, Wolf! I’ll find yeh! Run!
Lucan found he was still in the throes o
f whatever force had awakened his magic within him and discovered he, too, could direct a considerable force of air at the beast. Combining his effort with the gusts coming from Trellia and Aria, the three managed to buffet the creature backwards and away, for a moment, but the fiend was not repelled; it seemed barely annoyed as it continued to tear at the trees, digging itself an unobstructed way down into the clearing.
Wolf sprang from the far tree line and bounded across the glade towards Shyla, terrified but fanatical in his desire to make it back to his friend. Time slowed as Shyla looked from Wolf to the beast; the dead black eyes of the monster had no pupils, none she could make out, but Shyla knew it had turned its attention to Wolf; she almost imagined it flashed her a malevolent grin. She broke for her friend as fast as her legs could carry her.
The immense creature inhaled.
The air in the clearing seemed to become thin, inert, void of the elements of life. The companions struggled to draw their next breaths. Trellia’s stream of wind ceased abruptly, and for an instant, the clearing succumbed to a dark, deathly hush.
The glade was then bathed in blinding scarlet light as Wolf jumped into Shyla’s waiting arms, a terrible jet of searing flame from above trained directly at the pair.
Upon seeing the beast target the gnome and her pup, a blistering rage welled within the Firstson of Belgorne. With an unintelligible cry of hatred and dismay, the dwarf launched his axe at the fiend in a mighty, desperate overhand throw, a throw that should not have come close, a throw that should not have carried half the distance to the hovering monstrosity. Yet it did, and more, embedding itself in the scaled breast of the awful creature. The beast did not fall – the wound was only superficial – but it did give it pause, enough to disrupt the flow of fire, for the moment at least.
Aria looked on in revulsion over Trellia’s shoulder, willing her very life into the Vicaris to strengthen her efforts. Neither she nor Trellia had seen the throw; Trellia had been focusing on her own counterattack. Mesmerized by the sight of the creature, Trellia reestablished her spell too late, directing a torrent of wind at Shyla and Wolf, hoping in vain to blow them clear of the murderous fonts, or at least to redirect the fiery deluge. When the flames suddenly ceased, however, only ash remained. The horrified Vicaris let out a scream to pierce the Veil.
