“Ki?” I whisper.
“Not now,” she answers breathlessly. “Just run!”
Far ahead of us I can make out a golden glow between the trees, warm and inviting. Lovely sounds echo from within: laughter, music, birds chirping. It reminds me of the Ring in Kythshire. I push my legs harder in my effort to reach it. The faster I run, the farther away it seems.
“Here, quick!” Ki takes my arm again and points to a different escape as we skid to a halt. This one is a tiny cave mouth, dank and dark. Before I can argue she shimmies into it. I watch as her black hair is the last thing to be swallowed up by the darkness, and I glance again at the welcoming golden light through the trees ahead.
“Whatever you see up there, it isn’t real,” she calls from the cave. “Don’t trust it!”
With the darkness creeping ever closer, I’m close to panic. I can’t let it reach me, but my instinct screams at me not to trust Ki, even though she isn’t who she used to be. The golden light seems the best choice, but it’s too obvious. She’s right. It’s probably a trap. Tendrils of the darkness lick toward me as it nears. There’s little time to think. I dive into the cave mouth and I’m instantly assaulted by bright light.
It’s as though I’ve emerged in the midst of a deep blue summer sky. I cover my eyes as the effect makes them water and burn.
“Step in a little closer,” she whispers. When I do, the light dims.
“What—?” I start, but she hushes me. She’s pressed against the rocky wall of the cave. At her throat, a dainty blue stone shines brightly. It casts a beam of light across to the opposite wall where the cave mouth we just passed through stands gaping. The light from her necklace cascades like a waterfall over it, concealing us from the outside. I’m reminded of my own necklace and Flitt, and my heart aches with remorse and fear. How could I have lost it again? Is Flitt safe? Ki’s wide eyes are fixed on on the blue wall, her finger pressed to her lips. I turn and watch. Beyond the wall, I can see the darkness creeping. Even though it’s formless, I get the sense of a man within it. Someone powerful and dangerous. Someone not to be trifled with.
Ki steps closer, placing herself between me and the darkness as it creeps past the cave mouth. Her bow is loaded, pointed at the glowing wall. To me it feels pointless. I doubt an arrow would do anything at all to the powerful force searching for us. Still, I find myself wishing for my sword again as it pauses at the cave mouth. I don’t like feeling defenseless.
For what seems like hours we stand motionless, pressed against the cold stone, silently on edge as we wait for darkness to pass. When it finally does and sunlight begins to splash and pool against the light from her necklace, Ki turns to me.
“Dawn,” she says. “I’ll be waking soon.” She brushes the stone at her throat with her fingertips and the wall of light that blocks the opening fades away.
“Wait, you’re dreaming? You’re not really here?” I ask her. She seemed solid when she touched me before. It’s all very confusing.
“I am. I’m here, and I’m dreaming. Aren’t you?”
“No,” I frown and look down at my strange red gown. “I don’t know. When I woke in the tavern, I was in my armor. I watched myself fade away. And now I’m here, dressed this way, and all of my things are gone. But if I’m not there, if I watched myself disappear…” I press my fingertips to my brow. “I don’t understand.”
“Confusion is a way of life here in the dreaming.” Ki slides her arrow back into the sheath at her hip and pushes her long, loose hair over her shoulder.
“They said I was in both places,” I sink back against the wall. “They said it was clever of me.”
“Who did?” she creeps close to the opening and looks out cautiously.
“The little ones. I think they were fairies once.” I answer and follow her gaze. It’s bright and cheerful outside now. The threat is gone.
“The fallen, from Sunteri?” she asks. She turns to me and I catch the sadness in her eyes before she looks away again.
“You know them?” I ask. She nods. “Where did they go?”
“Into hiding. They fear him. The darkness. I imagine it’s even more frightening to them than it is to us. I can’t know for certain, though. They won’t speak to me. They fear me, too.”
“Oh,” I frown. It makes sense that they wouldn’t trust her. I was a witness to Viala’s cruelty to Flit and the other fairies she encountered. Still, I have to remind myself that this is Ki, not Viala. Viala is gone. “Why are you here?”
“Nightmares,” she looks away. “Iren says they’re of a time long past, but still they punish me. Things I did. People I forsook. In waking they’re forgotten, but in Dreaming, they plague me. He plagues me.” She lifts her chin toward the outside. “Dreamwalker.”
“Who is he?” I ask.
“Someone wicked. Someone who wants to cause pain. He’s so consumed by his own darkness that he wants nothing else but to inflict it on others and watch them suffer.”
“But who is he, really?”
“I don’t know.” She closes her fingers around the stone necklace. “I wish I did. I’ve been trying to figure it out, but I can’t get close enough to him. Iren tells me if I’m discovered here, it could destroy me. My fealty is to the Crag, so I have to tread carefully in this place. I’m learning how to keep myself hidden from him and watch. To gather information for Iren and Kythshire.” She tips her head to the side, as if listening for something. “I’m waking now. Be safe, Lady Azaeli. Travel only by day. Iren says the border is open to you if you seek it.”
“Can’t I go with you?” I ask her. “You could guide me, couldn’t you? To Kythshire?”
“I wish I could, but it doesn’t work like that. Our paths can cross in Dreaming, but we have to find our own way out. Your way is different than mine. I’m sorry. I’ll seek you out tonight, if you’re still here. Good-bye.” She fades slowly away, leaving me alone in the cave.
My first thought is to try to get to Kythshire through the Half-Realm. It’s easy enough to do it in waking, and so I imagine it will be just as easy in Dreaming. I start to doubt myself, though, when I begin. Rian is usually the one to lift the Revealer and settle us completely into the Half-Realm. I wish I knew how he pulled us back in so easily.
Come to think of it, now that I’m without him, I wish I knew many of the things Rian knows. His shield wards would be useful here, as would his offensive spells. We could survive together without my armor and my sword because of his magic. He has a spell of direction that would certainly guide me to Kythshire. The more I think about it, the more my heart aches for him. I need him by my side. We belong together.
“Rian,” I whisper and I wait, half-expecting him to come to me somehow. He doesn’t, though. No one does. The cave is damp and cold, and the darkness reminds me of the Dreamwalker. I squeeze myself out into the sunlight with no regard for the delicate fabric of my gown that catches and tears on the jagged rocks. When I emerge, I gasp in wonder at the sight that greets me.
A sunlit meadow stretches out from the mouth of the cave, sprinkled with flowers of red, orange, yellow, and purple. The trees, so close and ominous last night are wondrous in the daylight. The scene is so vibrant and lush that I can almost taste the color on my tongue. I’m greeted by a flock of blue and gold finches that dive and rise playfully before they settle in the flowers to drink their nectar. Their song fills the air around me, lifting my spirits and urging me forward, away from the cave. I close my eyes and drink in the lovely scent of blossoms kissed by sunlight as the soft breeze plays in my hair. Out here, Kythshire seems possible. Anything does.
Kythshire. I imagine Flitt’s grotto, with its sparkling clear water and bubbling waterfall. I picture Rian standing knee-deep in the pool and chuckle. When that doesn’t work, I think of the Ring, with its perfect circle of whitecap mushrooms and the gathering of fairies who dance and discuss. I whisper the names of places as I think of them in my effort to get there.
“The Ring. The Grotto. The
Crag. The field, the Wel—”
“Shh!”
I’m startled to my senses as the shushing drags out to a low hiss. My eyes fly open and search the meadow and the trees, but I see no one. Not even a shadow. At my feet, the flowers rustle and the ground starts to shift. I stumble backwards as a lump of earth stands on two feet and a curious creature looks up at me.
“Not too smart, is she? But she is pretty, yes. I’ve seen her before, but no, no, she isn’t the same one. This one’s got more to her. Come down here, girl.” I sink to my knees in the tall grass and come to his eye level. We look each other over carefully, cautiously. His face is flat and dirt-covered, with a wide mouth and big, amber eyes. He wears a shell-like chest plate, and on his back lush fronds of grass and bright orange flowers grow from a hump that reminds me of a turtle’s shell. In fact, he could be a turtle, were it not for his human-like hands and feet and his size. If the two of us were both standing, he’d come to my waist.
“What is her name?” he asks me.
“Azi,” I answer, a little confused.
“Oh, no,” he says. “Her full name. With titles. She has titles, I can tell.”
“Azaeli Hammerfel,” I start, and he waits for the rest. I don’t like spouting off my titles. It makes me feel conceited. But he asked for them, and somehow I feel obliged. “Sir Azaeli Hammerfel, Knight of His Majesty’s Elite,” I take a deep breath and try to remember all of the titles Crocus bestowed on me, “The Temperate, Pure of Heart, Reviver of Iren, The Great Protector, and Cerion’s Ambassador to Kythshire.” I let out a long breath and press my fingertips to my cheeks, which I’m sure are as red as they are hot. “And, you are?”
“Stubs.” He grins and bows.
“Sorry? Just Stubs?” I blink in disbelief.
“She doesn’t need to rub it in,” he says, sounding dejected. “Yes, just Stubs. I’m only a field knoll, after all. Nothing special. No grand titles, like she has.” He peers up at me and looks me over carefully.
“Hm, something else about her,” he says. “She bears the Mage seal. Apprentice?” He points to my forehead with a stubby finger, where Rian touched me at the moment I agreed to become his student.
“No,” I shake my head. “Not really.” Becoming Rian’s student was a quick and necessary decision, and I never pursued it. Mages are only allowed one student at a time. In choosing me as his, he was able to share secrets with me that were necessary for the protection of Kythshire against the Sorcerers. It also prevented Viala from coercing him into her plots to perhaps begin secretly teaching magic to Prince Eron. That seems like a lifetime ago, though. I had forgotten all about it since. Rian knows I have no interest in learning magic. I have a healthy respect for the Arcane arts and prefer to leave them to those more suited to learn.
“She’s been accepted, though. Claimed by a teacher. Why not pursue it?” He blinks at me slowly.
“I have no interest. I’m a knight. A swordswoman.”
“A swordswoman, no sword,” he reaches up and scratches at his nose.
“No. I left my sword behind, and my armor.” I try not to make a face as little clumps of soil tumble from his nostrils.
“Behind where? Wasn’t very fitting of a swordswoman.”
“Where I fell asleep. In the tavern, with my family. Please, do you know how I can leave here? I need to get to—”
“Kythshire. Yes, I heard her shouting all about it. The Grotto. The Crag. Shouting all over the meadow. Even almost said the one thing she oughtn’t, didn’t she?”
He’s right, I did. I almost mentioned the Wellspring aloud. I was careless.
“I thought I was alone,” I scowl.
“Never. She is never alone here,” he warns. The grass on his humpback sways as he shakes his head. “She’d be wise to remember that.”
“Please,” I say desperately. “Can you tell me how to find my way?”
“Same way to find anything,” he says with a shrug. “By looking. Sometimes we must look in places we don’t want to, hm? Use methods we don’t like?” He scratches at his soil-covered head and squints as he pushes his finger in and digs out a grub, which he holds up between two fingers. “No biting!” he scolds, and tosses it to the ground before turning his slow-blinking attention back to me.
“I’m not sure I follow,” I say as I watch the grub burrow into the earth near the toe of my boot.
“Magic,” he says. “I can teach it to her. Then she can find her way, hm? Yes?”
“How will learning spells help me leave here?”
“Magic,” he corrects me. “Not spells. It’s different. Everything here is made of it. Even me. Learn it, and she will find her way.” He leans closer to me and clasps his hands, his amber eyes hopeful as he anticipates my response.
“Why?” I ask. His eagerness only makes me more wary. I’m not a Mage. Not here, not anywhere. I’m a knight. I wield steel, not magic. “Why do you want to help me?”
“Because we share a common enemy, we do,” he says, and lowers his voice. “He walks in the shadows. Tampers. Frightens. He thinks all of this belongs to him, and it doesn’t. It doesn’t. It is ours and theirs. It is to be shared but he snuffs it with darkness and makes us hide away in the night. He reaches across into the waking and plucks his strings and makes them dance, and their dreams become dark and twisted, and so does their waking. And we can do nothing. Then, she comes with her titles. She who can walk in both realms and in-between. She who is loved and brings love. She will need her sword and her magic together to stop him. He’s her enemy, too.” He looks up at me with his deep amber eyes. “The Dreamwalker.”
Chapter Eighteen: Mentalism
Azi
Stubs proves a strange but welcome guide in this new world that I feel so trapped in. He leads me through the tall grasses and shows me where to step in order to avoid hurting anything or disturbing creatures that are best left undisturbed. With the sunlight warm on my skin, the place doesn’t seem nearly as daunting or threatening. In fact, it’s very pleasant here. Almost as much as Kythshire. Almost enough to make me want to stay and forget about all the things that seemed so important to me only yesterday. I recognize the magic of this place, though. It’s meant to do just that: to make me forget, to make me want to stay and never leave. I remember Iren’s words to me only days ago: Memory is a most precious commodity. It empowers us. It makes us who we are. I can’t forget, or I will lose myself to this place.
“Here now, will she sit?” Stubs gestures to a soft, grassy spot in the middle of the meadow and I gather my skirts and have a seat.
“All right,” I say, still a little wary of his lessons. “How do we start?”
“First, we practice See What I See. She will do to me, yes? Look through my eyes. Go on.”
“What? How? I can’t—”
“No saying “can’t!’ Do it. Imagine it. What I must see. Go on,” he taps his cheek just below his eye with a grubby finger. “Look.”
It takes me a while of staring at him before I get it. First, I see myself reflected in his great amber eyes, looking back at him with my blue ones. When I lean in closer and peer a little deeper, the space between us starts to shift. My eyes start to tingle pleasantly, and the sensation spreads through me slowly as my perspective changes. It’s very disorienting at first when I look up at myself through Stubs’s eyes. The meadow is more golden from his perspective, larger and far more beautiful. I take myself in as well, this woman before me. The red of my gown is so bright that it’s jarring, and my blonde hair seems to glow in the sunlight. With the sight of myself comes emotions that aren’t my own: curiosity, admiration.
Part of me wants to look away. It’s too imposing, too personal to be inside of someone else’s view this way. As I withdraw, I become more aware of my own body and the sensation of pure delight and power that charges through me. Magic. My toes and fingertips are pleasantly numb, my head is oddly, wonderfully light.
I dip my attention to Stubs again and the euphoria rises in me
as I look back at my own face once more. My lips are plump and red, my eyes such bright blue that they rival the sky. My skin shimmers soft and bronze in the sun. Elegant golden lines curl slowly from my chest onto my neck. They remind me of the Mark, but these aren’t wicked. They shine with light, and are elegant as filigree on the frame of a fine painting. They enhance me.
“Good, good!” Stubs says. “She’s got it! Now, try another.”
“Another?” I ask a little vacantly as I slide my perspective back to my own eyes again. The lovely sensation of magic flowing through me fades slowly, and with it comes a desire to fill myself up again with it. Restraint, I often heard Uncle telling Rian, is the most important aspect of training in magic. Now I understand why. This feeling is so delicious that the need for it could easily consume me. “I don’t understand, Stubs. How is this going to help me? I need to get to Kythshire and I don’t see—”
“Knowing.” Stubs raises a finger to his temple and taps it, causing a cascade of soil to tumble down his flat cheek. “Knowing this way, what others see, it is a boon. She will understand in time. Now, this time, look deeper. See my past. Hm?”
He blinks up at me and I’m incredibly tempted to do it again, but I stop myself and shake my head.
“I won’t, Stubs,” I say firmly. “I’m not a Mage. Besides, I have questions. Things here don’t make sense. If I’m truly here, why were my armor and sword left behind? And my necklace, too? Why did I see another of myself when I arrived? Was she really me? Why can’t I travel as I have in the past, to all of the places I know of in Kythshire? How do I find my way? Sitting here isn’t accomplishing anything.”
“Look and see. I will show her. Look. Just once more. Come.” He takes my hand and gazes up at me. “Look, Lady Knight.” My curiosity in the face of all these questions wins out over my attempt at restraint. Against my better judgment, I want to feel that rush again. I look at him and see myself, and then he widens his eyes and I tumble away, far away, into Stubs’ memories of a time long past.
Call of Sunteri (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 2) Page 20