“We must—” Graelalea began, but howls interrupted her, howls and yips and screams. Arrows sang out of the darkness. “To the castle!” she cried, but even as she turned to lead them away, an arrow penetrated the gap in her armor beneath her arm and she fell.
Faster than Karigan’s eyes could follow, the Eletians responded, white arrows streaking into the shadows. Lynx thrust Yates at Karigan and lifted Graelalea into his arms.
“Groundmites!” he shouted. “We need cover!”
“This way.” Ealdaen swiftly turned and ran toward the castle. Telagioth, Solan, and Lhean kept their arrows flying.
Karigan ran after Lynx, dragging Yates behind her and yelling directions at him even as groundmite arrows fell about them.
They had to clamber over the enormous trunk of a fallen tree, scrambling for finger- and toeholds. It was more like climbing the rocky face of a mountain. Bark crumbled beneath Karigan’s foot and she almost fell, an arrow thudding into the wood beside her. Ard pushed Yates from below, and then they were over the top, down the other side, and running again. Mercifully the ground was relatively level, and then Karigan realized there were flagstones beneath the forest debris. They were heading toward the castle, and when Karigan looked up, she saw wide, curving steps leading up to a terrace and enormous doors framed by statues. The statues were of Eletian maidens gesturing toward the grove, though one’s arm lay half-buried on the ground. They pelted up the stairs and onto the terrace. Ealdaen ordered them to take cover behind the statues.
Karigan peered around the leg of her statue, watching as Telagioth, Lhean, and Solan crouched on the fallen tree trunk, taking careful aim before loosing arrows. Groundmite arrows flew over and around them. It had to have been by sheer accident and not skill that Graelalea had been hit. She glanced at the Eletian cradled in Lynx’s arms. Blood runneled from her white armor and dripped to the stone beneath their feet.
“Can’t help her till we get cover,” Lynx rumbled.
Graelalea’s eyes fluttered open. They were a startling emerald in this dark place. “Galad . . .” she began.
“Shhh,” Lynx said. “You must save your strength.”
“Arodroa imitre!” Ealdaen thundered, making Karigan jump.
He stood before the great doors muttering something, and if she didn’t know better, she could swear he was cursing in Eletian.
“They need the moon,” he said, frustration in his voice. He disregarded the arrows that skittered on the stone around him. He took out his moonstone and silvery light rippled across the doors, revealing shining, swirling designs incorporating a tree, the stars, and the moon, very similar to the moondial they’d seen in Telavalieth.
“Arodoa imitre en muna!” Ealdaen commanded.
There was a discernible snick of a mechanism from somewhere deep within the doors, and a groan, but they still did not open.
Ealdaen did not flinch or move when an arrow bounced off the back of his armor, and he loosed another stream of what Karigan could only guess was more colorful Eletian cursing. He actually kicked one of the doors. And it opened—just a crack—but it opened. He, Grant, and Ard threw themselves at it and pushed, opening it just wide enough to permit them to enter.
Ealdaen gestured for them to go in and Karigan hoped they were not entering something worse than what they were leaving behind. Ealdaen paused on the terrace. “Telagioth!” he shouted.
Karigan glanced back in time to see Solan, and then Lhean, leap off the tree trunk and pelt toward them. Moments later Telagioth followed. By the time Karigan had guided Yates into the castle, the three Eletians were filing in behind them and pushing the door closed.
“The groundmites have magic with them,” Telagioth said. “I can feel it.”
They all stood there in the castle entrance, overcome by a heavy silence—no dripping of water, no screeching of forest creatures, nothing. And it was not dark. A dull glow shone through the walls, like being inside an eggshell, and yet the castle had thick walls, didn’t it? No, not an eggshell, Karigan decided, but a seashell. The walls gleamed with a pearlescent sheen, not unlike Eletian armor.
The chamber they had entered was the bottom of one of the great towers and they could look up into its seemingly infinite heights, stairs and walkways winding up along the walls, bridges crisscrossing at various levels. Doors opening to who-knew-what lined the walls. The decay of the forest did not permeate the tower. Rather, Karigan had the sense of a place long sealed off from the rest of the world, abandoned and lifeless, but still a bulwark against the dark.
Lynx had lain Graelalea on a blanket on the floor and he and Ealdaen were tending her wound.
“No,” Graelalea gasped. “Need Galad . . .”
Yates nudged Karigan. “What do you see? What’s happening? Where are we?”
But she did not answer him. She left him and took halting steps toward Graelalea as though some will other than her own drew her.
“Galad . . . Galadheon,” Graelalea whispered.
Karigan dropped to her knees beside the Eletian. Blood stained the blanket beneath her and trickled from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes had dulled.
“I’m here,” Karigan said.
“As foretold,” Graelalea said, her voice scarcely a whisper. “I shall not be leaving Blackveil.”
Ealdaen protested in Eletian.
“No, peace, Ealdaen,” she replied. “It is a death wound. Hear me, the Galadheon . . . the Galadheon must complete . . .” She raised her hand and reached for her hair, and in a gesture that appeared to sap all her remaining strength, she tugged a feather loose from a braid and handed it to Karigan. “Enmorial. Remember. Must cross thresholds, Galadheon. Go with the moon.”
Graelalea’s body slackened, the life extinguished from her eyes. Ealdaen and the other Eletians took up a cry of despair that soared upward into every recess of the tower.
“Good-bye,” Karigan murmured to Graelalea, and even as she watched, the Eletian’s armor dimmed, darkened, as if it, too, were dying.
The Eletians settled Graelalea’s body in the very center of the round chamber and covered her with her gray-green cloak. They placed her moonstone upon her chest and it gave off a dim, gentle glow, and they sat around her in silent vigil.
“This won’t do,” Ard muttered, pacing back and forth. “What are we gonna do? Stand around forever waiting for them?” He jerked his thumb at the Eletians.
“She was their princess and leader,” Karigan said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her chest felt thick with sorrow, but she was unable to shed tears for the feather captivated her, diverted her thoughts. She twirled it before her eyes. It was so white it almost glowed, except for the spray of blood, crimson on pure white. It was causing something to awaken inside her.
“I don’t care,” Ard replied. “Telagioth said those groundmites have magic and they might find a way in here soon.”
“The nythlings don’t like it here,” Grant said. He sat curled up against the wall. The pale light of the castle gleamed on his sweaty face. “Almost time, but they don’t like it here.”
“Hey,” Yates said, his voice, in contrast, excited. “I . . . I think I can almost see. Just shapes, mostly gray, but . . .”
Karigan was glad, but in a distracted way. Just as something was awakening in her, perhaps it was in Yates, too. The castle. The castle must be nulling the backlash effect the forest had on Yates’ ability, but that did not explain what was happening to her.
Then suddenly she understood, for she began to remember. It came to her as a light touch on her brow, feather-light, like flurries of snow falling and flashing in the silver glow of her moonstone. She remembered standing in the snow beside her father’s sleigh where a figure of light had told her she must travel to Blackveil to help the Sleepers, that if “the enemy” awakened them they would become a deadly weapon.
The figure had told Karigan she could cross thresholds and that she was “the key.” Somehow all of this could aid the Sleepers.
; The feather of the winter owl, given to her by Graelalea, had opened her memory, but memory did not serve her. How was she to help the Sleepers? What did it mean she was the key?
Pounding startled her. The groundmites were banging on the doors. One thing was clear: “the enemy” was without and she had to figure out how to prevent them from awakening the Sleepers.
SEEKING BLOOD
Grandmother and her groundmites had toiled their way around the black lake and through the remains of the city. The chronicles of her people had prepared her for the odd aesthetics of the Eletians and their ever spiraling streets, but the groundmites disregarded the streets, using rough trails through the ruins they must have broken and learned about over the generations. If there were obstacles or some predator in their path, they lunged forward with unbridled enthusiasm and battered down whatever was in the way.
The castle towers loomed over the craggy, dark ruins, sometimes seeming to float, depending on the whimsy of the fog. It was not absolutely clear in the chronicles if Mornhavon occupied the castle after defeating Argenthyne or left it to rot. Even if he had occupied it, the chronicles suggested he preferred his fortress in the west, on the shore of Ullem Bay. She could not blame him, for the towers here were otherworldly, disquieting, exuding the taint of Eletian power even after so much time.
They came to the grove more swiftly than she dared to hope thanks to her groundmite allies.
Gubba extended her arms wide as if to embrace the immense trees before them and proclaimed, “Brin ban orba!”
Grandmother, who still could not follow the groundmite’s speech, assumed she’d said something very profound.
“Morrrnnhavon brin ban orba!” Gubba exclaimed, and the groundmite warriors banged the butts of their spears and bows on the ground repeating her phrase in a shout.
One thing Grandmother had gathered was that the groundmites regarded Mornhavon as a god, thought that he’d created this world for them. It was true in a sense. For all intents, the groundmites had done very well in Blackveil, a realm of Mornhavon’s making. But Grandmother knew better—Mornhavon was not God. He may have been the greatest Arcosian to have lived, still loved and revered by his people, and the favored one of God, but no, he was not God. It only served to illustrate how much more sophisticated Grandmother and her people were than the groundmites.
Now that they had reached their destination, Grandmother was still unclear as to what she needed to do to awaken the Sleepers. She assumed it would require blood magic, but now that she saw the immensity of the grove for herself, and that the trees, though rotting, retained some strength in them, she realized she’d need a lot of blood. She gazed speculatively at the groundmites. She’d need several of them, and they’d likely turn on her if she tried to use even one of them.
She turned her attention to her own people. They had come all this way with her and had shown exceptional loyalty, even Sarat, who’d been so frightened of every little thing along the way. She’d grown very fond of them and hated the thought of having to sacrifice even one of them. Perhaps she could persuade someone to volunteer. It would certainly demonstrate ultimate loyalty to her and Second Empire.
She watched Lala clamber up a tree root and balance her way to the trunk to look at a nobby burl that resembled a face—a face dribbling sap. Could Grandmother sacrifice her own granddaughter?
She would if she must, for God had commanded her to awaken the Sleepers.
Lala took her eating knife and probed the burl, then jammed it into the spot of rot. The tree trembled, casting down branches and needles and scurrying creatures. Groundmites scattered out of the way.
Gubba clapped and laughed. “Lalala goot!”
The old groundmite would not be laughing had one of the truly enormous branches above dropped on her.
The wound Lala inflicted in the bark caused more sap to flow. It had an ocher tint to it.
Very interesting, Grandmother thought, and she called the child away fearing that another stab into the tree would indeed cause it to drop a limb on them.
She stood deep in thought, stewing over what to do, what had to be done. The groundmites were scattered but nearby, gabbling among themselves or picking beetles off the forest floor and popping them into their mouths. Her own people sat themselves on a tree root to rest after their arduous journey, and Lala took up a string game.
Gubba now squatted and looked up at Grandmother as if expecting some great show of the art. Grandmother in turn sighed, and then felt a twinge on the back of her neck. Something had changed. Gubba sensed it, too, and gazed in the direction of the castle.
Grandmother closed her eyes and centered herself. Quite a while ago, she had sensed the forest being distracted and God had told her to awaken the Sleepers before the “others.” Now she could feel that those others were here threatening everything she’d worked for.
Gubba snuffled. “Yelt,” she said, her eyes wide, showing fear.
Yelt? Did she mean the Elt? Eletians were here? It certainly explained the forest’s interest and God’s ardent command. She concentrated more deeply and sensed the bright spirits not far from the castle.
“They must be killed,” Grandmother said, but before she could plan an organized assault, Gubba shouted something and her groundmites took up their weapons. Hooting and yelling, they charged in a disorderly pack deeper into the grove.
This would not do, Grandmother fumed, but it was already done. Her men came to her side.
“What’re they after this time?” Griz asked.
“They are hunting Eletians.”
“Eletians! What are those unholy creatures doing here?”
“Perhaps the same as we.”
Griz suddenly crumpled, the shaft of a white arrow jutting from his chest. Another dropped one of the groundmites that had remained with Gubba.
“Take cover!” Grandmother cried.
How did the Eletian arrows find them through the trees like that? There could not be a straight line of sight. Deglin and Cole rushed her behind the bole of one of the huge trees with Min and Sarat. Lala calmly sat at their feet.
One thing was now for certain: Grandmother would have her blood.
LADY OF LIGHT
The castle beguiled Karigan, drew her to explore beyond the chamber they’d entered, so she tucked the feather into her braid as she’d seen Graelalea do and limped across the chamber, leaving behind the sound of groundmites pounding on the doors and Grant whimpering against the wall. He’d curled into himself, folded into a compact ball. She left behind Yates and Ard, and the Eletians who sat in vigil around Graelalea’s shrouded body. No one stopped her or asked where she was going.
Somehow she was supposed to help the Sleepers and she needed to step away to think, to retreat from the noise, and from the emotions each one of her remaining companions projected, their confusion, sorrow, fear, and anger. She felt all those things, too, and did not need them augmented by the others. At least they were safe from the groundmites, if not from their noise. Ealdaen said they’d never be able to force their way into the castle.
She followed a winding corridor out of the chamber, her feet raising layers of dust, the bonewood tapping on marble. The curve of the corridor tantalized her—she wanted to see what was hidden around the bend—but around and around she went, and though she had a sense of spiraling inward, the curves grew no tighter, at least not in any way she could perceive. Her idea of a seashell, like one of the large conch shells her father’d collected from the Cloud Islands, remained apt, the smooth pearlescent walls scrolling inward to its core. What would she find when she reached it?
Very soon she had her answer. The corridor opened into a vast, round chamber that soared upward like the other tower, but unlike the other, it contained no stairs winding to the top, and no bridges crossing its heights.
Upon pedestals stood four statues of winged Eletians, each perfect in form, the feathers of their wings as delicate and airy as the real thing, not at all resembling the stone th
ey were carved from. The statues aspired to flight and the tower was high enough. Somehow Karigan knew that only the open sky would free them, and she felt the conflict of yearning to ascend with them, but of being Earthbound.
On the floor were several clumps of bones, faded fabric, and shards of steel weaponry. A spider, a normal-sized house spider, spun a web in the rib cage of a nearby skeleton. There was no other evidence of creatures living or dead, not even mouse tracks in the dust.
The dust caused the floor to appear a dull gray, but when she scraped her boot across it, the floor shone obsidian underneath. More investigation revealed some pattern inlaid in crystalline quartz too large to uncover entirely. She thought she would move on and continue her exploration, to find out what other parts of the castle would be revealed, when she heard the sound of footsteps behind her.
She turned to find Ard emerging from the corridor with bow and nocked arrow pointed directly at her.
“Ard—what?”
“My true mission,” he said, “is to see that you don’t survive yours. I kept hoping something else might take you so I wouldn’t have to do this, but you kept surviving.”
At first Karigan could only gape, but then it dawned on her. “You ... you were there,” she said, her voice barely rising above a whisper, but carrying easily across the cavernous room. “You were really there, weren’t you, when I was caught in that creature’s web.”
Ard nodded. “I thought those monsters would finish you. No luck, so here I am. I regret this, but I’ve no choice.”
“But why? At least tell me that. What have I ever done to you?” Karigan stepped back, her heel nudging a pile of bones that rattled. A leg bone rolled away.
“Duty to my clan,” he replied. “To protect the marriage of my lady to the king. You are a threat, and anything that threatens my lady must be destroyed.”
Karigan’s heart thudded. Others knew of her feelings for the king? Someone high up thought her enough of a threat to murder her? The captain had warned her that with her knighthood she’d entered the thorny world of the royal court, but this went beyond politics! Or maybe she was just being naive.
Blackveil Page 56