But now, as she drew close to the crack that led to the vault, she slowed down. The water carrying her was making too much noise. It would be better if the gromdin didn’t hear her coming. The wave deposited her gently on the stairs. As the water sluiced away, she stood and listened. At first, she heard nothing, but then came a sound she’d learned to dread.
It was the sound of vines rustling across stone.
The last time she’d been down here the vines had been some distance from the crack still. They must have grown closer.
She took the orb of Seaforce and compressed it, making it small enough that she could close her hands around it. With her hands closed, most of the light was trapped, yet she could shift a finger and allow a beam of it to stream out and light her way.
She continued climbing the stairs, her way lit by a thin beam of emerald light. She hadn’t gone far before she turned a corner and saw the vines. They had indeed grown quite far since last she saw them, spilling down the stairs and disappearing into the crack that led to the vault and its precious contents. She stopped, not sure what to do next.
The vines were thick, the leaves a poisonous shade of green edged in crimson. She couldn’t see anything in the shadowed depths, but she could feel the malevolence. There were things in there, watching her, awaiting their chance. Things that meant her harm.
But she had to stop the gromdin, whatever it took. That was the imperative that drove her.
She approached the vines cautiously, watching them closely with each step.
When she was half a dozen steps below the vines, dog-sized creatures with long, hairless tails and huge, yellow eyes dominating their withered faces, burst out at her. Sharp canines curved down past their lower jaws, and all four limbs ended in long claws.
They launched themselves at her, hissing, claws extended, teeth bared, a half dozen of them.
But Aislin was ready. She’d prepared for this. A touch of her will and she released a tiny burst of Seaforce. Emerald light shot out in a wide arc. Sparks flew as the power scythed through the creatures, and they shrieked horribly.
A heartbeat later all of them lay on the floor dead, torn into bloody rags.
The vines shivered and slid forward. Aislin backed up, readying more Seaforce.
But the vines weren’t moving toward her.
They were moving further into the crack. The main stalks were as big around as Aislin’s wrist, and there were at least a dozen of them. They slid across the stone for a few moments, extending perhaps a pace or two further, then went still again.
She took a step closer. What was happening? Why were the vines moving toward the vault?
A tremor passed along the stalks, setting the broad leaves to vibrating. She had a sense of the vines tightening, flexing.
All of a sudden there was a flash of red light and a hollow boom from the crack. The stairs shook. The vines jerked and began to thrash around madly, like a snake with its head cut off. Aislin jumped back. Her nostrils picked up the odor of burnt greenery as the thrashing grew ever stronger.
The vines went still. The leaves swiftly turned brown, then gray. They began to fall off the vine, crumbling when they hit the floor. The stalks themselves turned a bleached-out white color, like old driftwood on the beach.
From the crack echoed a triumphant roar.
The gromdin had the key fragment. Aislin could feel it.
Her caution and fear dissipated like smoke in a high wind. She threw herself into the passageway, forcing her way past the dead vines. The leaves crumbled to powder at her touch, and the stalks snapped like long-dead twigs.
It didn’t take long before she emerged into the chamber containing the vault.
The vault was destroyed, shards and chunks of the glossy black rock sprayed everywhere. Blackened vines lay in a snarl in the debris.
The vines had been used to do what no person or creature from the Abyss could do: destroy the vault.
Standing in the midst of the wreckage was the gromdin, a huge, hairless, bloated thing, with blotchy skin and a hunched form. It was holding the key fragment in one hand, staring at it greedily. The red light that normally emanated from the fragment had gone out.
Aislin hesitated barely a heartbeat before she reacted. With a cry, she unleashed Seaforce.
But, mindful of what she’d learned from Treylen, she didn’t unleash all of it at once, lest she destroy the chamber and bury them both under countless tons of rock. Instead, she fired several marble-sized orbs of Seaforce.
The orbs punched through the bloated body of the gromdin, tearing holes in its flesh and staggering it. It roared and spun toward her. Aislin hit it twice more, tearing new holes in its rubbery, mottled skin.
It flung out one thick-fingered hand. From the ends of its fingers thin, black lines shot at Aislin. When they struck her, the impact lifted her off her feet and slammed her against the wall of the cavern. She screamed in pain. It felt like a fire was burning inside her, devouring her from within. The black lines held her there against the wall, suspended above the floor.
Then, something worse.
Small, white sparks began to leave her body, sliding down the black lines toward the gromdin. From her mother she’d learned about Selfsong, and she knew that was her Selfsong leaving her body. The gromdin would devour it, and soon she would be dead.
The realization panicked her, and she unleashed the rest of the Seaforce she held in a sudden, uncontrolled burst. It raced away from her and detonated. The gromdin was thrown back into the broken pieces of the vault. The black lines were devoured in an instant, and Aislin fell to the floor, where she lay, her ears ringing, her skin feeling burned everywhere.
Lying on her side, she saw the creature wobble to its feet, still holding the key fragment. It barely glanced at her as it shambled by and forced itself into the crack leading back to the stairs.
Aislin knew that she had to get up. The gromdin was getting away with the key fragment. She had to stop it, whatever the cost. She got her arms underneath her and managed to sit up. The motion hurt terribly, and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. From there she was able to lever herself to her feet. She stood there for a moment, weaving, fighting against the waves of blackness that threatened her.
Then she stumbled off down the crack after the gromdin. Back at the stairs she paused for a moment to catch her breath. She still felt dizzy, but it was receding, and the ringing in her ears was dying out.
She could see by the crushed remains of the vines that the gromdin had gone upstairs, running back to wherever it had emerged from.
She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. She was so weak still. She didn’t have the strength for this.
But the Sea did.
She called the Sea, and it answered. Sea water rose up the stairs in a sudden flood. The water embraced her, renewing her, healing her.
When it receded, she was herself once again. She gathered Seaforce to her and started running up the stairs. She hadn’t gone far when she saw the first oily, black splotch on the stairs, the gromdin’s blood. Soon she found some more, and then some more. She’d injured the creature.
That meant she could kill it.
She came around one corner, and the gromdin was waiting for her.
Its wide, toothless mouth gaped open, and from it came a snapping, crackling mass of purple energy. She met the chaos power with a blast of emerald Seaforce. The two forces exploded in a sudden burst of light and energy that knocked Aislin to her knees and turned her vision to a mass of bright spots.
By the time she shook it off and stood up again, the gromdin was out of sight. She gritted her teeth and pursued it. The thing was running for its lair. She knew without a doubt that if it made it there, it would be too strong for her. It would escape, and she would have failed.
All the vines she encountered were utterly dead, which was fortunate because if Aislin had had to fight her way through the stuff, or stop to burn it away with Seaforce, she wouldn’t ha
ve been able to keep up. As it was, the gromdin smashed recklessly through the dead remains and cleared a path for her. That, along with the creature’s wounds—as evidenced by regular patches of its blood on the floor—slowed it just enough to allow her to keep up.
The stairs ended at metal rungs set into a stone wall, leading up to a trap door. The rungs had bent under the gromdin’s weight, and one had pulled out of the wall, but they held enough for her small weight. She poked her head up through the trap door.
And immediately saw another ball of crackling chaos energy come shooting toward her. She met it with Seaforce at the last moment, and ducked back down as the two detonated, most of the shockwave passing harmlessly overhead. A few sparks got in her hair, and she had to slap at them, but otherwise she was unharmed.
She stuck her head back up in time to see the gromdin going through a doorway. She climbed up and ran after it.
At the doorway, she was met by another attack of chaos energy and again she deflected it. She was on the ground floor of the tower. The gromdin was standing on the stairs leading upward, and it roared something at her in its own language and shook its fist, before continuing upwards. She let loose with a burst of Seaforce before it could get out of sight, punching a hole through one of its legs and eliciting a fresh howl of pain from it.
She chased it up several flights of stairs, never able to get another clean shot at it. It stopped on a landing and tried again to blast her with chaos power, but nothing came from its mouth when it tried to, and it settled for picking up a piece of loose stone and throwing it at her. Aislin easily deflected it but wasn’t able to counterattack before it dove through an open doorway.
Aislin made it to the landing and looked through the doorway. The light in the room beyond came from a window that faced toward the palace. The room and the window were choked with the dead vines. On one wall was a shimmering oval opening taller than a man, in which hung the tattered remnants of a massive web. A dark purple-black light emanated from the opening, and dimly visible on the other side was a world of massive, gnarled trees, water dripping steadily from their limbs.
The gromdin was passing through the opening, one leg and one arm already through.
This time Aislin held nothing back.
She unleashed every bit of Seaforce she still held, focusing it not on the gromdin, but on the opening. Emerald light flared as the Seaforce exploded. Though her innate connection to Seaforce shielded her from most of the blast, still it was strong enough to throw her back onto the landing. The detonation tore chunks of stone from the ceiling and walls, and the whole tower groaned and swayed.
Aislin climbed to her feet and peered through the cloud of rock dust into the room. She could see nothing at first and had to wait for the dust to settle.
The shimmering opening was gone. Only stone remained, a huge hole ripped in it. There was no sign of the gromdin.
Feeling sick at heart, Aislin stumbled across the room. She’d let it escape with the key fragment. She’d failed in her duty. There was nothing she could do now.
As she got closer, she saw something on the floor, something partially buried in broken rock.
It was one of the gromdin’s arms, still connected to the shoulder and a chunk of ribcage.
Gripped in its dead fist was the key fragment.
Chapter Thirty-two: Karliss
The three friends topped a low rise, and Batu turned in his saddle to look back. There was no sign of Tharn. The Guardian was truly gone. Batu turned back around and shook his head.
“Firehair wanted you to do a trick. Too bad he didn’t see that one.” Firehair was the trader from the south who’d told Karliss that the king in Qarath wanted to speak to him about the coming war. “He’d never believe it.”
“I saw it, and I’m not sure I believe it,” Hulagu said. “Where’d you get the idea to lift that thing up like that and drop it?” he asked Karliss.
Karliss managed a weak shrug. He was holding onto the saddle horn firmly, afraid he might fall off, he was so exhausted. “Nothing else was working. I didn’t know what else to try.”
“It’s strange that the creature quit like that,” Hulagu said. “It’s almost like it had lost before.”
“I’m just glad it did,” Karliss admitted. His hands were shaking, and he gripped the saddle horn tighter, trying to control them.
Hulagu looked at him and frowned. “You don’t look too good.”
“He’ll be fine,” Batu said lightly. “Heroes always are. And they don’t get more heroic than the great Karliss, master of the wind spirits.” He sketched a quick bow toward Karliss.
Karliss tried to smile. The truth was, he felt a long way from fine. He felt thin and hollowed out, like he might blow away at the first puff of wind. Using the second word of power had drained something vital out of him. It would be awhile before he got it back.
“Maybe we should stop and rest for a while,” Hulagu said, reining his horse closer to Karliss’.
“Not yet,” Karliss replied. “I want to put some more distance between us and Tharn first.”
“I agree,” Batu chimed in. “What if he changes his mind and decides to come after us again?”
Hulagu rummaged around in his saddle bags and came out with a piece of dried meat. He held it out to Karliss. “At least have something to eat.”
Karliss shook his head. “I don’t think I could get anything down right now.” It was true. Food sounded completely unappealing, even though they’d been on short rations long enough that he was constantly hungry. Also, he knew how close they were to being out of food, and he wanted to conserve as much as he could until they could get back down onto the steppes where food was more plentiful.
Batu was looking over his shoulder again. He pointed suddenly. “I think I see him. There he is.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. “And don’t come back! The great Karliss won’t be so easy on you next time!” He giggled.
“What’s wrong with you? Why’d you do that?” Hulagu asked. “Are you trying to make him mad?”
Batu held his hands up. “I’m only trying to have a little fun. Besides, maybe my words will make it into the song they’re going to write about Karliss someday. ‘And Batu, his plucky sidekick, shouted his defiance at the creature as it fled the scene of battle.’” He nodded. “I like it. Has a nice ring to it.”
“That’s how you see yourself?” Hulagu asked. “As the plucky sidekick?”
“Plucky. Funny. Always with a bit of cheer to lighten the mood.”
“You know you’re not really funny, don’t you?”
“Compared to you I am.”
Karliss gave Hulagu a wry look. “He’s got you there.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll make it into the song too,” Batu said. He started singing, his voice lacking even the most basic melody. “‘And Karliss’ other sidekick, Hulagu, he of the sour face who was determined to have no fun—”
Hulagu interrupted him. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”
“No, I’m the cheery, entertaining one. You’re the muscle. We don’t have any idiots in this crew.”
Hulagu groaned. “Why do I bother?”
Karliss smiled a little, listening to them bicker. It helped. It really did. The sound of their voices, the familiar jibes, it helped anchor him, bring him back to himself. His old teacher’s warnings about the danger of letting the spirits too far inside came back to him. He felt as if he’d been broken into hundreds of pieces and those pieces were flying on the wind. His mind was filled with the incessant chatter of the aranti he’d used against Tharn. It was hard to concentrate, hard to block them out and be himself.
He could feel the weight of the blue gem he carried in his pocket. Touching it had somehow allowed him to tap into memories that weren’t his own, memories belonging to the dead being in the cave—one of the masters—and memories from the Shapers when they first arrived on this world.
Between those memories and his close con
tact with the aranti, Karliss wasn’t quite sure who he was anymore. Which memories and feelings were his, and which belonged to them? Where was his voice in the babble of other voices?
He realized then that Batu was speaking to him and came out of his thoughts. “What did you say?”
“I said, I wish you could use some of your power to find food.” Batu rubbed his stomach. “Being a hero’s sidekick makes you hungry.”
“Is food all you ever think about?” Hulagu asked.
“And you’re not thinking about it? Karliss, couldn’t you command one of the spirits to go to the clan camp and bring us back some progis or something?”
“What?” Hulagu replied. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”
“No, it’s not. Besides, how do we know what Karliss can do if we don’t ask?”
“But using the spirits as servants?”
“Why not? It would make them a lot more useful.”
“I’m not talking about this with you anymore,” Hulagu said.
“At least admit that it’s a great idea.”
“I’m not admitting anything! I’m done talking.” Hulagu stuck his fingers in his ears. Batu turned to Karliss.
“What do you think about my idea?”
“You remember I told you what the aranti are really here on this world for, right? To protect the key from the Devourers?”
Batu nodded. “Of course, I remember. I’m not simple.”
“When it comes to food you are,” Hulagu said.
“I thought you weren’t going to talk anymore,” Batu said to Hulagu. “That’s why you put your fingers in your ears, remember?”
Hulagu took his fingers out of his ears. “It’s not working,” he grumbled. “I can still hear you.”
“So?” Batu said, turning back to Karliss. One eyebrow raised. “Food?”
“Stop bothering him with your ridiculous ideas,” Hulagu said. Under his breath he added, “Using the spirits to fetch food. I never heard anything so—”
“Unh-uh,” Batu said, holding one finger in the air. “They’re not spirits, they’re aranti. Weren’t you listening when Karliss told us—”
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