Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set

by Vanessa Nelson

  “Rocks,” she murmured to Dorian, who was still looking confused. He paled, drawing a breath as he looked around.

  “We can defend this. There are only two approaches.”

  “Assuming the walls stay where they are,” Arrow pointed out, digging in her messenger bag for chalk.

  Dorian’s lips moved, trying to make sense of her words. He did some thinking of his own, too. “If we can get them in pieces and shove the bits into the cell, would they stay?”

  “A good notion,” Iserat said. “Yvan, give Kester your spare blade.”

  The only warrior with a spare, Arrow saw. Iserat knew his resources. Yvan did not hesitate, passing the blade to Kester, who drew his other sword and made some experimental passes with a blade in each hand, testing the balance.

  “Onalla, Pateris, Yvan, to that side. Ronath, Kester, with me.” Iserat divided his warriors. “Willan, get us a way out.”

  “Yes.” The war mage’s face was tight. Whilst Arrow had been watching Kester test his new blade, the mage had gathered all the papers up. He handed them to Dorian and Juniper to burn, everyone averting their eyes from the bright flames. Arrow handed chalk to Willan who stood for a moment, holding the pieces in his cupped palm.

  “It has been a long time since I had chalk to work with. It is amazing how the simple things make the difference.”

  “They have brandy in the world above,” Arrow prompted, crouching to begin her first rune. The anchor point. She tied the anchor to Gilean’s translation spell, a thing of beauty she had studied carefully in her time watching the summit.

  “Brandy? Get on with it, mage,” Onalla hissed without taking her eyes off the corridor ahead of her.

  Willan grinned, gathered his robes around him, and started his own runes next to Arrow’s, working in the opposite direction.

  “What can we do?” Dorian asked.

  “Keep your fellow humans out of the way,” Arrow told him.

  She glanced up to make sure she had been heard and understood and saw set, determined expressions on both his and Juniper’s faces. The humans would not be going anywhere.

  Serran just folded his arms in his sleeves and glared at her when she looked up at him. There would be no help from him.

  The first of the rock figures came into view as she ducked back to the floor and the rune pattern.

  “There is nothing we can do,” Willan muttered. More to himself than to her, she thought.

  “Work faster,” she suggested.

  The comparative quiet was shattered by human screams as the former captives caught their first sight of the rock figures.

  Arrow formed spell lines as fast as she could, working from the memory of the portal spell the humans had brought and her own training. Over her head she could hear the hiss of steel through air, terse words in Erith passed between the warriors, the soft sounds of warriors’ feet across the ground, the ground itself shaking with the impact of the rocks as they moved, and fell.

  She dodged to one side more by instinct than thought as one of the oval heads flew past her ear, striking the ground in the middle of the circle, and bouncing on into the cell beyond. Thankfully, it missed all the carefully drawn runes.

  “Sorry,” Pateris said. He did not sound particularly sorry. He sounded liked he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

  She glanced up to find that the warriors had formed something resembling a work crew. Yvan and Iserat were at the front, slicing the creatures limb from limb, whilst avoiding being sliced themselves. The others were keeping a prudent distance from Erith steel, collecting the dismembered bits of the figures and then flinging them through the cell’s opening. The rocks inside the cell were moving, still, but much more slowly than before.

  “How much longer, mage?” Onalla asked.

  “You realise this normally takes several days to prepare, and that one mistake could see us torn apart into a million fragments?” Willan sounded unusually terse.

  “Well, we are almost finished,” she answered. “Do try and keep up.”

  Arrow shook her head, biting her lip against an unexpected smile, checking the rune she had just completed. Done. She looked at the next space only to find there was none. All the runes were in place. She and Willan were shoulder-to-shoulder, having completed a half each.

  “Check my work,” Willan told her, moving past her, “and I will do the same for yours.”

  There was no insult or intended offence. It was a practical step, and Arrow had been about to suggest it. She tucked the last end of her chalk away in an outside pocket of her bag and moved on to inspect Willan’s work.

  When they had checked each other’s work, they each made a slow circuit of the whole spell, inspecting the whole of it.

  “Will Saul be able to use it?” Dorian asked.

  The sounds of battle had faded. Arrow looked up from the spell to find the warriors checking their blades, no rock figures remaining. The cell was a mass of bits and pieces of animated rock, some of the pieces gathering together again.

  “We can close it from the other side,” Willan said absently, finishing his last rune. “It will only work once.”

  Arrow rose from her last rune and both she and Willan made a slow, careful, circuit of the spell circle, checking their own work and the other’s.

  “The spell is complete,” Willan concluded, tucking the last of the chalk away.

  “The spell is complete,” Arrow agreed.

  Willan hesitated, looking across at her, amber bright in his eyes. The pure, clean amber of a powerful Erith mage. She did not need to see her own eyes to know that the silver was marred with darkness.

  CHAPTER 20

  “I know. You cannot use my power for the spell.” Her voice was cool, hiding hurt. She could feel the surjusi inside her, a barbed thread snaking up her middle, aiming for her heart. Time enough for cleansing in the world above. She hoped.

  He ducked his head, expression serious.

  “You must be careful,” he told her directly. “Hold to your oaths.”

  “Let us go,” Serran said, impatience crackling in his voice.

  Arrow looked around to find the third of White Guard waiting around the circle, with Kester. Ready to yield their power.

  “Good hunting, mage,” she said, meeting Willan’s eyes across the circle. “You six go first.” They had been here long enough.

  He inclined his head before turning his gaze around the circle, meeting the gaze of each one of the five who had travelled with him for so long, and Serran. “I will need everything you have.”

  “At your word,” Iserat answered for the five, Kester echoing the words. Serran’s jaw was tight, the older mage remaining silent.

  “You need to help,” Kester prompted, elbowing the mage. Serran glowered at the younger Erith.

  “At your word,” Serran said, reluctance clear.

  “Not you. Guard Arrow.” Iserat directed the command to Kester.

  “Rear guard,” Kester answered, mouth twitching. “Ay, sir.” Iserat’s mouth twitched in response and Arrow realised that the older warrior had ordered Kester as though he were a cadet.

  “What do we do?” Dorian asked.

  “Hold still. Wait until the six and the mage are through, and then go after them,” Arrow told him, voice tight, making sure she spoke common tongue so that all the humans could understand.

  All movement and questions ceased as Willan drew in a deep breath, folding his hands into his sleeves, war mage’s cloak falling around him so that he was blended to shadows. Arrow recognised the pose. A preparation and a meditation. Channelling power and wielding it was hard work, requiring focus. The Erith did not share easily. When he opened his eyes they were brilliant amber, and when he unfolded his arms, stretching his hands out either side, amber sparks flared under his skin. Onalla and Pateris, on either side of him, took his hands without hesitation and the rest of the circle followed until they were linked, amber coursing through their joined hands.

  Outside the ci
rcle, Dorian and Kester were standing in front of the humans, barring them from interfering, Juniper adding her glower for good measure. Arrow stood opposite the humans, eyes on the spell circle. One flaw and it could go horribly wrong.

  There was no flaw. She and Willan had done good work.

  Willan gathered all the power the warriors and Serran had to offer him until his body was trembling with it, unable to hold it for long, and he spoken the final rune, the one that activated the spell.

  The gloom was burned away by blinding amber magic, the centre of the spell circle disappearing, brilliant light spilling through. Daylight. Their world. And a roar of sound. Shifkin fury, human screams, an Erith voice crying for battle wards. Miach. Her anchor had been accurate.

  “Go!” Arrow shouted. Not necessary, as the six were already moving. Pateris, Yvan, Onalla, Ronath, Iserat pushing Willan through before he left, Serran hard on his heels.

  “Go!” Kester pushed Dorian.

  To his credit, the human magician pushed the others ahead of him. As they moved towards the circle, Arrow’s sword lit up.

  “Surjusi,” she shouted at Kester over the roar from the world.

  “Hurry up,” he yelled to the humans, pushing them onward.

  They would be too late, Arrow knew, her sword flaring brighter than the daylight as she drew it and stood, back to the circle, ready. She willed the sword to quiet so she could see beyond it, calling up another spell to manage her sight, the gloom impenetrable next to the daylight.

  Even as her eyes adjusted, Saul appeared, dressed in the same odd manner as before, the floor-length robes held with a belt. An approximation of an outfit she had seen before, teasing her memory, but that she could not quite place.

  “Saul, I presume,” Kester said. He was standing with her, shoulder to shoulder, his own sword ready.

  “Kester.” Saul inclined his head. “So glad you could join us.”

  Pleasantries over, Saul moved forward gathering momentum and size as he did so. Tall for a human, by the time he was in range of her sword he was twice the size of Undurat, the largest Erith Arrow had ever seen, and still growing.

  A quick glance back and she confirmed that all the humans had gone.

  “Go,” she told Kester, sword moving to slice at Saul’s outstretched hand. His face twisted into a smile, stepping easily out of her way.

  “Not without you.”

  “We need to go through.”

  Saul was moving closer, his main focus on her. She moved, the sword knowing what was required, feet following the sword’s pattern, tip slicing a line down Saul’s arm.

  The demon lord howled, pain and fury combined, and danced backwards, out of reach.

  Arrow was already moving the other way. A hard shove, power behind it, into Kester’s chest and he stumbled backwards, cry of protest lost in the cacophony of the world as he was sucked into the daylight.

  Arrow took one glance back, saw Saul coming towards her, sheathed the sword, and leapt into the light.

  And was torn apart into a million million pieces, each tinier than the last, skin she did not have burned with the force of her travelling, the sound emerging from the throat she did not have a cry of pain of anger of hurt of warning.

  ~

  She fell.

  And fell.

  And fell.

  And fell.

  Thump.

  Pain.

  Hard unyielding surface.

  Blind.

  White everywhere.

  Blind. Light too bright.

  Everything too much. Loud. Bright. Smell.

  Heavy. Pressed to the surface. Limbs trapped. Unable to move.

  A tug on her ankle.

  She kicked out. Instinct. The grip tightened. Hard fingers digging in even through boots.

  Screams. Shrieks. Orders shouted. The crackle of battle magic.

  Her hair was a cloud of static, trails of it across her face.

  Lungs burning.

  Eyes still did not work.

  The tug came again. Harder. She rolled, kicked with the other foot. Made contact with something.

  Not enough. The tug continued.

  A shout in her ears. Deafening. So loud she could not make out the words.

  Lungs full of scent. Familiar herbs. Rosemary. Mint. Something she could not name. Herbs. Dirt and leaves under her fingers as she scrabbled for a grip, wanting to get up.

  A grip at her wrist. Familiar warmth. Cardamom. Kester.

  “Arrow, can you hear me?”

  The voice was still too loud, too much. She flinched away from the noise, ears ringing. The grip left her wrist.

  “Arrow.”

  Quieter. She turned her head slightly, distracted by another pull at her ankle.

  “Cut her leg off.” Serran’s voice. Clear, with a rising note that sounded like panic. “The portal cannot close until she is through.”

  There were other voices, sounding calmer, then Serran again.

  “Or throw her back in. The portal must close.”

  “No.” One word, but it sounded like Miach.

  “Arrow,” Kester said again.

  She blinked and found him next to her, outline blurred.

  “Saul has a hold of you,” he told her. “He is trying to follow you through.”

  Arrow thought about that for a moment, about what the tug at her ankle must mean.

  “Knife, please,” she requested. A hilt was put into her hand without hesitation and she moved, twisted, bent forward, moving by instinct and touch, eyes still not clear, put the tip of Erith steel under her boot laces, sliced. Her foot slid out of the boot and she was free, scrambling back on her elbows, fingers tight around the knife hilt.

  “I suppose that worked,” Serran said, grudgingly.

  “Arrow, are you alright?” Kester was next to her again. She handed him the knife in silence and he stowed it away. She blinked several times, put a hand to her ear. Blood.

  “Here.” Orlis was there, as serious as she had ever seen him, familiar face a welcome sight. He held out a vial, stopper already removed. “Healing.”

  “Thank you.” She took it and swallowed the contents in one gulp. Coughed. Curled up on the floor in agony, face pressed into crushed leaves, as the healing coursed through her. The barbed tangle around her heart tightened. Surjusi power. Still inside her.

  Cries of alarm rose all around.

  She huddled on the floor for a moment, waiting for a blow to fall. Surely they could all see the demon power inside her.

  When no blow fell, she opened her eyes. Sight was back to normal, thanks to Orlis. Her hearing was not. At least that was what she thought at first, the jumble of noise making no sense.

  She looked around for the first time. She was lying in the middle of the carefully crafted herb garden that the Abbey’s staff had so meticulously created, a mess of crushed plants and soil around her, mingled scent of herbs drawn in with each breath. Beyond that, the grand ballroom was in disarray. All the delegates’ tables, with the careful settings of refreshments and flowers, had been overturned. One of the windows had been blown out, letting in cool air. The delegations were all in separate parts of the room.

  The humans huddled together, many shouting at each other, many shouting and pointing at the Erith, the Premiere somewhere in the middle among her security, wide-eyed and stunned.

  The Erith were almost silent, the Taellan muttering among themselves, two full cadre of White Guard circling them, battle wards raised and crackling in the air.

  The shifkin were still. Zachary was at their head, Matthias and Tamara just behind him, the rest spread out behind their leader, wary and watchful.

  And almost every eye was on a point behind her, she realised.

  She turned to look. Drew a sharp breath and scrabbled backwards again, one boot and one sock slipping on the crushed leaves and loose soil until she made it to the polished wooden floor. Not much better. She still slid, but kept going.

  The portal had not clos
ed.

  In the midst of the startling green of fresh herbs, an inky pool of bottomless black, leading down. The portal’s eye, set into the floor.

  A great hand, four long fingers ending in claws the size of Erith daggers and a thick thumb with a sword-sized claw, was poking up through the ballroom floor amid a circle of Erith magic, claws catching some of the leaves.

  Saul.

  Even as she watched, the hand moved further up, claws digging through the plants and soil into the wooden surface, finding some purchase, wrist appearing.

  Gilean and Willan, faces showing the effort, were standing near the Erith delegation, attempting to maintain a hold spell over the portal. Willan was shaking with effort, having held the power for the portal. They were still two of the Erith’s most powerful mages. It was not enough. It could never be enough. The surjusi lord was too strong, even partway through the portal. And the portal could not be closed whilst there was something inside it.

  Arrow’s heart was racing too fast, loud in her ears, the tangle of surjusi power marking each beat. Protection. They needed protection. From the demon lord. And from her.

  There was no time to draw the necessary spells. Saul would be all the way through by then. And she was not sure anyone would trust her. Or should trust her, with surjusi power inside her. Something else was needed.

  Her mind sped faster than her heart, reviewing the protections they had built into the Abbey. Nothing there that would help. But the humans who had opened the portal had brought things with them. Things that might help.

  The stones. The stones that had been carved by a part-Erith magician pretending to be human. Part-Erith, part-human. And there was only one Erith that she knew of curious enough about human women to have children with them. Her heart hurt with the realisation. He was poor enough grandfather. She could only imagine how poor he had been as a father.

  “Matthias,” Arrow shouted, the sound of her own voice painful in her ears, “are the stones still in the basement?”

  “Stones? Yes. What in hell?”

  “Can’t you just cancel the spell?” Zachary asked, his voice apparently calm. He was holding himself under control. And all the shifkin, too, Arrow realised. Perhaps some of the humans as well. She had missed the wave of the Prime’s power amid everything else in the room, but now she was aware of it, it was a near-visible force.