by C. S. Moore
If the Ancients had done it by accident, then it was pretty funny. A smile stretch across her face, but when she looked at Madgie, her smile faded.
Her brow was creased in worry, and she didn’t look happy at all. If anything, she looked more confused than when Amanda had first woken up after being attacked. “I don’t know. The
Ancients don’t do much by accident,” Madgie said. “I don’t like it. The sooner we get you to Shiphra the better.”
“What do you mean ‘we’? I thought you said we should split up,” Amanda said. As much as she hated the idea of being away from Cole, she knew he would be safer away from her.
“That was before this happened,” Madgie said, gesturing to the mark. “If it’s a tracker then splitting up won’t help your chances.”
“But it will help yours!” Amanda shouted, though she didn’t mean to raise her voice.
Cole spun her around to face him, but she wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“You’ve both done too much for me. We need to do whatever is best for you. I can take care of myself, but I can’t stand here and let you put yourselves in danger for me. It isn’t right.”
She could feel Cole’s eyes boring into her, so she met his gaze. His dark eyes were wide and pleading. They pierced through her like a diver breaking the surface of water.
“Isn’t right? Would it be honorable for me to walk away and leave you unprotected? You know I can’t abandon you. You know I won’t. So why even talk like this?” he asked, fire burning in his eyes.
She looked down at her palm and the mark burned into it. Madgie was right. Whatever this mark was, it wasn’t going to help her. The Ancients don’t make mistakes. If they marked her, she was as good as dead. Amanda had to try to change their minds.
“Cole, you know I want you with me, it’s just that…” She bit down on her lip to keep it from trembling. “I couldn’t handle it if something happened to you. The Ancients have marked me. I want you as far from me as you can possibly get. Just take Madgie and leave. Please,” she begged.
Cole’s expression was unchanged, and she knew he wasn’t going to leave her.
“Don’t you think I feel the same way about you?” he asked, tightening his grip on her arms. “Do you think I could just carry on if something happens to you? I spent two years of my life away from you, and I’m not going to turn and walk away. Not just because you want to be brave. If you don’t want me around, I’ll leave, but not until you’re safe.” He loosened his hold and turned to Madgie. “So where do we go from here?”
“Well, like I was saying, Shiphra is our only hope at survival.”
“And she can help me find Kaedin, right?” Amanda asked quickly.
“I don’t know. She might be able to. Forget that for now. If you’re dead, you sure as heck can’t find that Scar. We all need to meditate, thinking of Shiphra. Her face, her name… it’ll be harder for you Cole because you haven’t ever seen her, she was long before your time.” Madgie took a breath.
Cole quickly interjected. “If the Ancients have been hunting her for decades, how do we even know that Shiphra is alive?”
Reading his emotions, Amanda could see that putting their hope in someone who was practically a myth wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do.
“Well, that’s easy.” Madgie smiled. “How many Ancients did you see at Amanda’s trial?” She looked at them expectantly.
“Five,” he said certainly.
“Well, there are always six Ancients in existence. If one dies, another rises from the ranks. So since there were only five at the Hovel, Shiphra is still out there somewhere alive.” Madgie’s voice was so full of hope Amanda couldn’t help but jump on board.
“See, there you are, she’s definitely who we need to find. So let’s get meditating, unless the skeptic has more to add?” Amanda said, looking at Cole.
He shrugged.
“Okay, just tell me what to do,” she said to Madgie.
“Concentrate on her name, think of nothing but her. Try not to let your mind wander. It’s quite hard, but some monks can meditate for days, so fifteen minutes shouldn’t be too difficult… even for you,” she said, pointing at Cole.
“What? I’m not going to meditate. It’s not because I’m trying to be stubborn. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to have all three of us sitting in a circle with our eyes closed. We’re probably being hunted.”
Madgie’s face relaxed. “Good point. I guess I’m not very strategic,” she said with a laugh. “Okay, it’s just you and me.” She looked at Amanda. “Try to think of Shiphra and location. Tie the two together as if they were one thought. When the time is up, we’ll get together and discuss what we felt. I’m hoping we will have the same direction in our minds.” Madgie sat down and folded herself into a meditative pose that showed off her flexibility. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Amanda followed suit.
“Well, if it’s this easy to find her, how have the Ancients not found her?” Cole asked.
Madgie stayed in the same relaxed position, but peeled one eye open. “Because we will only find her if she wants us to. So if we have different directions at the end of this session, we can consider that an answer,” Madgie said in a calm tone, though Amanda could tell her patience was wearing thin.
Once her eyes were shut, Amanda started to close out the environment around her one sense at a time. First, she started with the sounds, the animal noises and the wind moving through the trees. She muted everything one by one. She shut off all of her senses, saving scent for last. It was always the strongest, at least she thought so. One aroma had the power to take you back in time.
The smell of roses took her back to helping the nuns prune the garden at her orphanage. Every time she smelled the clean perfume of rain she was back to cold nights on the street, when she had run from the Hovel, forever searching for shelter.
Whenever the heavy fragrance of earth reached her, she was brought back to the first time she’d entered a scar. She remembered coming out of it quickly and trying to dig herself back in.
She slowly shut out all of the smells floating toward her, saving Cole’s for last. It was a strange sensation, being alone in one’s mind with no outside stimuli. Amanda took a deep breath and began to roll through her memories of the person who had shared her cell back at the Hovel.
She brought herself back to the moment she’d held the large iron cuffs. The remembered sting of the cold metal was as real as the first time. Her muscles flexed at the memory of their weight in her small hands, not just their physical heaviness, but their emotional bulk as well. She let the emotions flow through her, pity, frustration, sorrow, and anger. Slowly she brought up the image of Shiphra, letting it gain clarity before studying it.
The woman’s face was just as sunken and haunting as the other Ancients she’d seen, yet somehow joy and life poured from her. Seeing her wild hair waving in the wind made her seem so much more tangible than the others. Shiphra looked solid and real. She looked like she belonged in this world. The rest of the Ancients almost seemed like mirages to her, glimmering people that upon approach turned into cactuses. She remembered her first impression of them, thinking that they looked like crude two-dimensional drawings.
“You’re not thinking of Shiphra,” Amanda chastised herself and returned to the task. She thought of the strange Ancient’s name and face and location, over and over again. It was hard to keep her mind from wondering. It felt like it took all of her energy to keep on task.
Amanda was relieved to finally be pulled out of her meditation by Cole shaking her vigorously. He was shaking her pretty hard. It must be a pain to get someone out of the meditative state. She brought all of her senses back as quickly as she could, starting with scent. Cole was close to her, and she’d wanted to catch a whiff of his amazing citrusy breath, but when the sense had fully returned, she didn’t smell Cole’s breath. She smelled the sickly sent of iron.
Blood.
She was
immediately aware of everything around her, the ear-splitting noise, the heat, and still the blood. Her eyes flashed open, meeting Cole’s. Sweat was dripping from his brow, and his face was tight with strain.
“Which way, Amanda?” he yelled.
She jumped at the sight of a streak of silver whizzing by but realized it was just her wolf running a perimeter around them. Beyond that, she could see nothing but fallen trees and smoke.
“What’s happening, Cole? Where’s Madgie?” she asked desperately, still smelling the blood in the air.
“I have her! Now, which way? We need to get out of here,” he said.
She looked up and saw that he had Madgie’s thin body draped over his shoulder. For a moment, all she saw was red. A scarlet river flowed down the back of her friend, staining her delicate blouse and running down Cole’s arm. She couldn’t move or speak. Amanda knew she had to say something. They needed to move, but she couldn’t bring herself to. You’re in shock, snap out of it! she screamed at herself. Which way, which way? Where are you? she asked choking back tears.
“Here,” someone whispered from behind her. Amanda twirled toward the voice, ready to fight, but no one was there. “Here,” it sounded again.
She looked at Cole, but it was obvious he hadn’t heard it.
“This way,” she said, pointing to where the voice had come from.
She was certain she knew who’s voice it was. “Come on, Cole!” she shouted when he didn’t move.
Reading his emotions, she understood his hesitance. The attack must have come from that direction. She thought. She looked at her wolf and knew they could make it through. They didn’t have any other choice.
“Okay, Cole, do whatever you need to do, but get us through there. Don’t be afraid to take my energy. Believe me, I have more than enough,” she said, looking at her furry power source. “I’ll shield us the best I can, but I need to see what I can do for Madgie. She’s losing too much blood.”
Cole stepped in front of her and ran into the smoke, Madgie’s limp body flailing with every step.
“Oh, my, she looks like a rag doll.” Taking off after Cole, she threw up a shield with one hand and put her other over Madgie’s wound. Her flesh had been torn all the way to her shoulder blade. Life giving blood was still pouring out of the gaping hole.
Someone hit her in the back while she was meditating?
Who could do that?
Drawing energy from the wolf that was still running circles around them, she focused on healing Madgie. She had absolutely no idea what to do, no clue what spells a medical Healer would murmur. Amanda guessed it wouldn’t matter what they would do or say, because she knew they wouldn’t be able to help Madgie. Not with a wound that size. Heal. Heal. Close. Fix. She ran every word she could think of through her mind while trying to keep her shield up.
Her energy was draining rapidly, so she pulled her hand away from Madgie, not wanting to lose too much and collapse, leaving Cole alone to carry two unconscious women. When she removed her hand, she looked at Madgie’s shoulder, and her heart skipped a beat. The wound was closed though it wasn’t perfectly smooth, and it still held a reddish-pink tinge. Madgie’s eyes blinked open, and although they seemed to be in a dreamlike state, she could still see the fire behind them.
“Everything will be fine,” she said, just managing to keep back a flood of tears. “Madgie has stopped bleeding!” Amanda announced to Cole while switching her attention to putting up stronger shields. She tried not to count the attacks as they happened. She didn’t want to know how outnumbered they were. The constant pressure on her shield told her the outlook wasn’t good. As she built up their protection, an image flashed before her.
A rock, a slit in a rock. A cavern? She flexed as her shield was hit with a stronger attack. “Where?”
“Here.” The voice came from her left.
“Cole!” she shouted. “Dart left and start throwing that projection spell you used on Carter. I’ll keep the shield up. Just get us that way unnoticed, and don’t be afraid to use my energy. We won’t live through this if you don’t!”
Cole shot left, and her brain was scrambled for a second as dozens of replicas sprung up everywhere. She searched for their desired location and found it not too far away.
Amanda took a breath and was about to shout but the noise level had dropped. They weren’t being attacked anymore, she realized gratefully.
“There’s a cavern about two hundred yards ahead of us.
Keep an eye out for it,” she whispered just loud enough for him to hear. The farther they got away from the fight, the more she allowed herself to dwell on it. Grey cloaked figures had swept in and out of the smoke, launching attack after attack. Every face she had seen pop out of the haze had been a different one, though they had all held the same expression of rage and excitement.
How many were there? Twenty, thirty, or more?
“Amanda?” Cole asked.
She looked up and saw the wall of rock that had been shown to her. It was a giant grey dome at the footsteps of a cliff. Moss and foliage covered it, just like it had in her vision but there was no opening in it.
“That’s it. Maybe we just need to circle it, you know, find the opening,” she said, unsure.
Amanda thought she’d seen the opening in the face of the rock they were looking at, but she was wrong. Maybe she’d been wrong to follow the voice. She didn’t even know who was behind it.
They were twenty paces away when Cole paused. “Wait,” he said.
She stopped and looked at him, sure he would question even taking the time to find the opening.
“Look,” he said pointing up.
She turned her face away from him and saw the crack she’d seen in her vision.
“It’s right there. I didn’t see it before… Must have been a trick of the light.” He guessed, though he didn’t look convinced. The terrible clashing of the fight was still drifting toward them.
“Come on, let’s go,” she said, hurrying over the rocky terrain toward the opening.
Cole followed her and grabbed her arm when they had reached the opening.
“How did you do that? I mean, you healed Madgie, you shielded us, and you lent me power for that distraction spell. Even with all of my training, I’ve never been able to keep it for that long, or control it from this distance. I could never have gotten us out alive. Did you see how many were out there! How, Amanda?” he asked in puzzlement.
She looked behind her in time to see her wolf’s bushy silver tail disappear into the cave. “Well, first don’t feel bad. It was you that got us out. You’re still carrying Madgie, aren’t you?”
Madgie grunted a little, but Cole’s eyes were still searching.
“And second, and don’t be freaked out by this, but I kind of have this huge wolf spirit following me around. Oh, and I seem to be the only one who can see him.”
Cole’s eyebrows reached for the stars. “What?” he asked as Madgie’s grunts became more audible.
Amanda shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, he’s been following me since the night Madgie was missing. I don’t know how, but he gives me all sorts of energy. I think he’s what healed me from the demon’s poison and Carter’s attack and that cloud of acid. Just pretty much everything that’s happened since we left home,” she said in a rush. When she stopped talking, she realized the battle had died down.
The distraction spell wasn’t working anymore. She quickly followed her wolf into the cave. The opening was narrow, and she found herself stuck a few times but finally emerged. Calling on light, she slowly brought the large room into view. Not a room, but a cave, she told herself. But it looked like no cave that she had ever seen.
Looking up, where she should have seen stalactites, she saw an intricate carving of a dragon. The dragon looked more serpent than bat, and its long scaly body wound itself around the ceiling of the cave with its giant head in the very center. The face of the creature had thick whiskers surrounding its mouth, which was fu
ll of large teeth.
She tore her eyes away from the ceiling and saw that the rest of the cave had been carved in the same oriental décor. Scattered throughout the space was stone furniture that had also been carved with intricate designs. A heap of silver fur already occupied one of the stone couches. Moving back to the opening, she saw that Cole was taking a little longer getting in. He was having trouble balancing Madgie, who seemed to be putting up a fight. Amanda couldn’t quite hear what Madgie was saying. Was it something about her?
“Calm down, Madgie. Just hold on one second,” Cole said. “Stay still. You’re hurt. You can see her in a second.” He finally emerged, looking dazed. “I think she’s in shock. She keeps hitting me and calling for you,” he said, taking her from his shoulder and laying her gently on the floor. “Wow! What is this place?” he asked before she could say anything.
Madgie sat up. “Amanda?” she cried.
Amanda rushed to her side and knelt down, putting her hand on the woman’s too-white cheek.
“What is it, Madgie? I’m here,” she said.
“You, you said… about a wolf. Only you see. Giving energy…” Madgie swayed in place, and Cole put a hand on her back to steady her.
“Yes, Madgie, that’s what I said.” She turned to Cole. “This is good. It means she’s coherent enough to—”
Madgie interrupted her quietly. “The mark, the wolf. Do you… Do you understand what this means?” she asked.
Amanda had to strain her ears to hear; her voice was getting weaker. “No, Madgie, what does it mean? Have you figured out why they marked me?” she asked desperately.
“Not them, it’s a…” Madgie’s eyes slowly closed. Amanda waited for them to open again, but they didn’t. She looked over at Cole.
“I guess we’ll have to wait to find out just what it is,” he said. “But for now, she needs fluids and any nutrition we can get in her.”
She looked around the room and expected to see a banquet. After all, furniture had been supplied, but there was nothing. Not even water.
