Standing on tiptoe, Ran peered into those eyes he knew so well, but Papa wasn’t in there. He’d gone off with the magic and left his body and Ran behind.
“Papa?” Ran pushed against his shoulder, but Papa was a wall of lean muscle, so he didn’t budge. His back was rail straight, but his face was an expressionless mask.
Fear crawled into Ran’s belly and clenched his guts. He wriggled until he could touch Papa’s face. It was warm and sweat beaded his father’s brow.
“Ow!” Ran retracted his smarting fingers after they strayed too close to the green light pumping out of Papa’s eyes. He sucked on his injured digits. Why was the light so hot? Was it hurting Papa?
“Bear? Should I wake Papa? Bear?”
No response. Bear had just been with them. The ghost had made a grand entrance full of twinkling lights just a few minutes ago. Why now was the ghost so quiet?
Ran shook his stuffed companion. “Bear? Why won’t you talk to me?”
Bear’s button eyes stayed dark and devoid of intelligence. Where was Bear? Why wasn’t the ghost here? Ran poked Bear’s fuzzy belly. Still no reaction.
A fat tear rolled down his cheek. Why did everyone leave him?
“Papa, come back,” Ran begged, but his words ended on a sob.
A rat poked its whiskered nose out of a pile of clothes and as it sniffed the air, silver rolled across its eyes. Rat Woman had mirrored eyes. This rat must be one of hers. He listened for the drone of insects heralding Insect Man’s arrival but didn't hear any.
Maybe Rat Woman's here alone. That’s ok. She's a grown-up. She'll know how to help Papa. Ran relaxed and waited. He wasn't alone anymore.
“I'm glad you're here. Can you tell if Papa’s okay?”
When Rat Woman didn't manifest, Ran beckoned the rat to come closer. It couldn’t examine Papa from the other side of the cave. But the rat didn't move. It remained mostly hidden under a pile of dirty tunics, watching his every move.
“Oh, I get it. You aren’t all here ‘cause the magic’s messed up.”
The rat bobbed its head. Its mouth opened and closed, aping human speech, but only squeaks issued.
A knock sounded. Ran cringed as a voice accompanied it.
“Sarn? Sarn, are you in there? Sarn?” Moirraina asked.
She was one of the Foundlings. If they opened that door and saw him kneeling beside his unresponsive Papa, they’d take him away. They were always doing that, and it was annoying. They said it was for his own good, but they were wrong. I should always be with Papa. Always.
“Sarn?”
The knocking grew louder and more insistent. The planks Papa had cobbled together into a crude door shook from the force of her knocking. Moirraina jiggled the handle. It was unlocked, of course, since Uncle Miren was due back from school soon. Too bad he wasn’t here now.
Ran looked to Rat Woman’s emissary for help, but it’d darted into a hole in the wall. He was left alone to deal with the knockers.
If that door opens, I’ll pretend I'm sleeping. Maybe then they’ll leave me alone. Ran laid down next to Papa and chewed on Bear’s ear.
“Papa? Papa, please wake up,” Ran whispered. “I want to stay with you.”
The door creaked. Ran squeezed his eyes tight shut and curled in close. Papa sat cross-legged, so he laid his head on Papa’s knee, and a hand cupped the back of his head. Likely it was a reflex action, but Ran opened his eyes and searched the intense light gathering around him for signs of his returning Papa. His shoulders slumped. Papa wasn’t back, and the knocking was growing more insistent.
I want to stay with you, Papa. Don’t let them take me away. Because if they did, no one would make sure Papa woke up.
I don’t want to lose you. Tears stood out in Ran’s eyes.
One day he would lose Papa because something was wrong with him. Not even Ghost Bear, whose vessel he crushed against his chest, would help Papa. Maybe the Queen Tree would, but she’d gone away like everyone else. It was up to him now.
“Papa, come back to me. I need you!” And he didn’t believe that black stuff wasn’t still out there, waiting to gobble up Papa if he strayed too far from home. “Papa, come back!”
The Adversary brushed past the Guards in their smart blue uniforms, squinting in the sun glaring off their pointy helms. They stood in a ragged line blocking one of the few exits from the subterranean Lower Quarters. He scanned the restive crowd, but they were ordinary folk—dirty, disheveled and more than a bit frightened by the Ægeldar’s tentacular appearance earlier.
“Let us out!” the crowd shouted.
As one Guard stepped forward to deliver a speech, some of his mates started stacking rocks to block up the hole. The next earthquake would just knock it down again, but mankind thrived on fruitless toil.
There it was again that double stop arpeggio in the tenor range, but it faded as a quiet descant soared over it. The Adversary cocked his head and listened. That soprano voice sang a concealment spell—as if such a paltry weaving could blind his eyes. There wasn’t a mage alive who could cheat his sight.
Light blinded the Adversary, and the head Guard made a tossing gesture. He held fast to something, but the Adversary could see neither the rope nor what it had caught. But it had caught something, or someone judging by how hard the Guard pulled.
The Adversary snapped his bony fingers in a contrapuntal rebuttal, but the concealment spell held. Who had enough power to cast a spell that powerful? Only one entity sprang to mind—the Queen of All Trees. Who or what are you hiding, Queenie?
Whatever she’d shielded was right there but invisible until the priestess uncovered her chunk of black lumir crystal. Come on girl, I gave you a magic-stealing rock, use it!
Finally, she did. Ripples spread out from Aralore as the black hole in her keeping warped the fabric of magic into a funnel sucking all magic and light into itself. Good girl. The Adversary could picture her maniacal grin and hear her laughter. He shared it as the stone in her keeping created riptides in the magic even here miles away from the epicenter of her mobile magic-nullifying disaster. They passed through the Adversary like so much bad air because he was just a spirit walking through this plane until a hapless mortal invited him in.
But it ensnared the thing the Queen of All Trees was hiding. For a moment, a man-shaped glow appeared, and with him, a faint double-stop melody signifying a mage with two gifts. Then he or she vanished as the riptide dragged him, her or it toward the black lumir crystal.
Well, well, well, the double-souled walks again. I should have known. Nothing else on this plane merited such safeguards. Since the tide was carrying this prize to where he’d originally headed, the Adversary floated out of the mountain. What luck. He should arrive just in time to snatch two prizes for the price of one from the Queen of All Trees. Which would she give up—Dirk or this new mage?
Checkmate, my dear.
Sarn clawed at the black current dragging him, but his fingers plunged right through it. Symbols appeared on his hands. Row upon row of them crammed themselves in until they covered his skin in luminous chains. They glowed a soft white, but bits of their light spiraled into the current dragging him through the Lower Quarters. How do I get out of this?
Neem’eye eriskeen, shouted the green magic racing around inside him—not the answer he’d expected.
What does that even mean? Sarn pulled his hand out of the flow and those symbols winked out. He flexed his long fingers. They looked the same as always despite what he’d seen. This substance must not have leached anything he was using.
I must be caught in a magical riptide. I didn’t know there were such things. Struggling only increased its hold. How do you fight a force of nature?
“Bear! Help me!”
Sarn kept calling that spirit animal, but the ghost didn’t reply. Maybe Bear couldn’t hear him. After all, he wasn’t corporeal in this state, so he passed through walls as if they were naught but smoke. Nothing he did stopped or slowed his slide toward another we
ll of darkness. At least this one wasn't in the Ægeldar.
Another wall turned into a puff of smoke as the tide yanked Sarn through it. Every part of him tingled from the prolonged bout of incorporeality. Hopefully, it wouldn’t do any lasting damage.
“Papa, come back!”
I’m trying, son! Thoughts of his son made Sarn redouble his efforts, but the black thing pulling Sarn wouldn’t give. He was caught in its undertow. Unlike real water, he couldn’t swim out of this.
Help me, Sarn said to his other magic as he careened through two more walls in succession. But the white magic lodged in his breast just glowed on as if nothing was wrong. Earlier he’d called it forth to help others. But this time, he was the one in need, and it was ignoring him. It figured.
His map sprang up and a red X flashed, but before Sarn could do more than glance at it, Mount Eredren screamed his name, and two stone fists punched out of the next wall. They slammed into Sarn, jarring him out of his incorporeal state, so they could hold on to him.
Pain hammered spikes through every part of Sarn and he convulsed as the world darkened around him. The current pulled, but the mountain refused to let go.
They’re tearing me apart. Everything was growing fuzzy around the edges—all except for Ran’s shouts.
You shall not pass. You belong to us, Rock-Breaker, said the mountain, shaking him to ensure he got the point. Its gravelly voice echoed through the tunnel. We won't fall into darkness. We won’t be bound.
“Bound by who? What are you talking about?” Sarn asked the mountain, but it just repeated:
We won’t be bound.
As those cryptic words died away, Sarn realized he’d traveled the entire length of the Lower Quarters. Spells wove through the rocks, but they were dim points of light accreting as he watched. Beyond that uneven expanse of stone and magic lay the meadow and beyond that, the menhirs and the enchanted forest. This was the outer edge of Mount Eredren, and it refused to allow him past this point.
“Did something happen in the forest? Or to the Queen of All Trees?”
The question recalled the last time he’d seen her. Something had attacked her magical glade. Sarn shook his head to clear it of the too-vivid memory before it could replay, but the question remained. Is my Queen in danger?
He waited, but if Mount Eredren, or his unhelpful magic, heard his question, neither replied.
Something must have gone terribly wrong, but where? Not the Ægeldar, the Queen of All Trees’ shield sealed it off. Tears pricked Sarn’s eyes as the realization hit. There was only one other place trouble could arise—inside the enchanted forest, where the Queen of All Trees dwelled. Five miles from this spot, Shade and an awful lot of innocent people had died the last time something evil rose in the forest.
I must go out there. I must see. Even if it broke his heart because if the trouble was in the enchanted forest, it wouldn’t stay out there. It might already be endangering his son or his brother or both.
“Papa, come back, I'm scared.”
“Let go of me!” Sarn pounded on the stone hand wrapped around his waist, and it crumbled. Before it fell away, another one shot out and almost crushed his spine. It eased off when he cried out from the pain. “Let go of me.” His plea was reduced to a whisper by the stone band compressing his chest.
No, said Mount Eredren, but its grip was loosening.
Invisible currents were leeching away bits of the mountain’s power, and the hands it had manifested were flaking away each time the mountain shook. What’s causing it to disintegrate in slow motion? Not black lumir, no, it can’t be that.
No, shouted the mountain, but its ‘hands’ were cracking. You shall not pass. Mount Eredren’s bellow shook the ceiling, raining down rocks on its captive.
Sarn threw his arms up to shield his head and green rays shot out of his fingers. As they batted away the projectiles, some of their power bled away—stolen by the current flowing out of the mountain. One of the incoming rocks glistened like unkindled lumir. It caught the emerald glow of his eyes as it spun in slow motion, reminding Sarn of the crystal pendant hanging around his neck.
He felt for it, but the rock holding him hostage broke apart and the current swept him through a twenty-foot thick stone wall. Symbols smaller than the pad of his pinky divided into still smaller parts and they in turn subdivided into chains of symbols too small to identify. Bonds held them together as he cleaved through solid stone.
Sister, Priestess
The mountain shook and so did the balcony. The vibrations knocked Inari’s basket off the bench, spilling her tarot cards. They landed face down—all except one. Inari set her book aside not bothering to mark her place. With shaking hands, she flipped over the high priestess card hiding it, but the wind grabbed it and flung the card riverward. Inari chased that damned card to the parapet then froze when her gaze fell on a familiar longship.
No, it can’t be. Her hand flew to her mouth covering it, muffling the scream tearing out of her throat. “Aralore!”
White light blossomed in her peripheral vision. Inari turned, and the High Priestess’ card flew past her cheek, scratching it. Blood welled from the wound as the card landed face up on her booted foot.
The Queen of All Trees regarded Inari from more than a mile away. At a thousand-feet tall, she dwarfed her leafy children by a couple hundred feet, but they didn’t seem to mind.
“My Queen,” Inari curtsied and, in the process, knocked that damned card from her person. The Queen of All Trees’ luminance filled her eyes and her heart, kindling a new fire—one filled not with hurt for the past but determination.
Whatever Aralore’s plans were, they would not include Sarn. She would make sure of that—if Aralore was on that ship. Oh, who am I kidding? Aralore must be on that ship. The cards don’t lie.
Inari picked up the high priestess card and crumpled it, wincing as its sharp corners pierced her hand. She threw the bloody mess into her basket and palmed one of her daggers. She might need an edge where she was going.
With a knife in her hand and determination in her heart, she fled the balcony for the North-South transept and a long overdue confrontation.
Aralore stepped across the second circle of those creepy man-sized menhirs and pivoted. Had someone just called her name? A breeze tugged at an errant lock and her eldest sister’s voice seemed to ride its current. But it couldn’t be.
Inari couldn’t be at Mount Eredren. The very idea was preposterous. There was too much nomad in her sister’s soul. Inari would never settle down here nor even visit. There was nothing here to attract her or any of their relatives, which was why Aralore had chosen it for her test.
No, Inari was out there, following the Wandering Way like all the other lost souls.
Anger boiled under the surface. Don’t worry sister, I’ll save you with fire and brimstone and a knife through the heart. After all, that’s what you deserve. Aralore’s hand dropped from the box to her blade.
Inari, the perfect sister, the best huntress, the bravest woman in their caravan—but I will best you yet, sister-dear. Then you’ll bow to me.
The box wobbled in her one-armed grip forcing Aralore to let go of her blade or risk dropping her precious prize. Behind her, those standing stones vibrated, and she turned. A low throb emanated from the two nearest her. But the sound spread from stone to stone. Like drums sounding in the deep, their hum tapered off as it traveled around its circumference. Silence fell as Aralore stared at them.
What was so special about those rocks? Aralore ran a hand down the nearest stone, which was wider than three of her acolytes standing shoulder to shoulder, and felt nothing—no vibration, no hum. There must be some power in those stones. How else could they be a refuge?
Aralore stared at a woman clothed in silver radiance. On her brow, a crown of interlocking branches held back a cascade of luminous tresses. In her eyes, the stars shined cold and distant. This woman—this Queen—was light and wisdom personified. Like a diamond, she posse
ssed a cold beauty and a sparkling clarity of purpose.
“Who are you?”
“Do not let the abomination cross the standing stones while uncovered.”
In her hands, a white box coalesced. She held it out to Aralore. Behind this strange woman, the twin rings of menhirs bounding the meadow gleamed like dragon’s teeth.
“Put that vile rock inside it. Break the other spells upon my land if you must but leave the circles intact. Leave this place as the refuge it has always been.”
Her command tugged at Aralore’s hands, moving them like marionettes to the Bitch Plant Queen’s will. I’ll get you for this. There’s nowhere you can hide that I won’t go. This means war between us.
Aralore fought the White Witch’s control but to no avail. The Queen of All Trees’ will bore down on her. Aralore opened the lead-lined box revealing its reflective interior. In went the stone, then the Queen of All Trees forced her to close it.
Time breaks upon my boughs. My roots are twined throughout the ages. Come for me if you wish, but I will stand until the breaking of the world. Nothing you do can change that. The Queen of All Trees turned in a silver swirl. As she processed away, her human shell melted, becoming once again a thousand-foot-tall monstrosity.
“I hate her with all my soul,” Aralore muttered. I will destroy you, Witch Tree.
Aralore squeezed the box she could neither put down nor open until she crossed the second circle of menhirs a mile yonder. The Bitch Plant Queen had bound her to that one goal.
NOW
Aralore shook her head. How could those queer stones be a refuge? It made no sense, but that vile promise wrapped around her like chains, and it yanked her from them. Twelve acolytes followed in her wake. No one spoke, but their excitement was palpable.
Every step away eroded the Bitch Plant Queen’s influence a little more, freeing Aralore. After several miles, she was her own master again. Aralore sighed in relief and opened the box just a crack to give the enchanted trees glaring at her a taste of the cure for magic. Shadows reached out of the box and stabbed the nearest trees. They writhed as they dimmed, collapsing at her feet like the magic-less refuse they were.
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