Cassa Dar closed her own eyes and was silent for a breath. “I knew this d’warf.” She opened her eyes, and her gaze bore upon Er’ril, daring him to doubt her. “It was my own brother, the one with whom I played sneak-and-seek in the tunnels of our childhood home. As the waters rose, it was his dying thanks, as he choked on my vines, that finally chased me from the chamber. Sick at heart, I did not think to grab the Try’sil but simply ran.”
Exhausted by her story, Cassa Dar sat down on her chair. “The hammer still lies down there, under the roots of Castle Drakk, awaiting its next master.”
“The Dark Lord has never tried to retrieve it?” Elena asked.
“No, he used the Try’sil, then cast it aside—just as he did my people.” She glanced to Elena. “But I believe your magick can call the Try’sil forth from its watery grave. I will show you how, but only if you swear a promise to me.”
“To return it to your lands,” Elena said, recalling the wit’ch’s previous request.
The wit’ch nodded. “Use its power to break the ebon’stone might of the Black Heart. Avenge my people, then return it to Gul’gotha. Legend has it that as long as the Try’sil is returned to our homeland that our people will survive. Return it, and I pray the legend will prove true.”
Elena felt her pain. “But why don’t you return it yourself?”
Cassa Dar lowered her face. “I wish I could. But when the vein of silver ruptured and I engaged my magick to attack the blackguard, the magicks mixed and a part of my spirit was drawn into the land itself. That is how I’ve lived so long.” She turned a tired smile upon Elena. “I am no longer just a d’warf; I am also a part of this land, this swamp. I can never leave.”
Elena’s look of sorrow drew a small chuckle from her. “Don’t pity me, child,” she said. “I love these lands. When I called these moss constructs my children, I was not lying. This entire land grew from me, and I cherish all of it. Here is my home. Though I may be lonely sometimes, I am content.”
Silence settled around them as her story ended. No one knew what to say. Finally Elena spoke. “I will try to do what you ask,” she said. “If given a chance, I will return the Try’sil to your homelands. But—” She held up her moss-shrouded hand. “—I can’t do it like this. Will you lift your spell?”
Cassa Dar pushed back from the table and stood again. “No,” she said, to the shock of the others, “you’ll do it yourself. The power to dispel the bewit’ching has always been yours.”
Elena’s eyes grew wide. “But if I engage my magicks, the vines worsen.”
“Come,” the swamp wit’ch said. “I will show you how.”
Cassa Dar led them to a staircase and guided them up its twisting course to the castle’s top. As Elena stepped out into the night air, she was surprised at how clear the sky was above the castle. Stars shone brightly, and a half-moon glowed crisply in the early evening. Around the castle lay a blanket of swamp mists, but the tower itself rose higher than the clouds, thrusting its battlements up to the clear night sky.
Elena breathed deeply. Free of the swamp’s gasses, the air smelled almost sweet.
“It stinks up here,” Jaston said with a crinkled nose.
“You’ve just never smelled normal air,” Mycelle said, clapping her friend on the shoulder.
As the other members finished gazing at the wondrous sights, Cassa Dar approached Elena, waddling on her squat legs. “When you first arrived and I examined your hands,” she said, “what did I say to you?”
Elena remembered the wit’ch’s whispered words. “That I didn’t know half my power.”
The wit’ch nodded and knelt beside her. “So true.” She picked up Elena’s two hands. “Why do you only use your right hand for magick?”
Elena’s brows furrowed. “What do you—?”
Er’ril interrupted. “Because a mage can only bear the gift of Chi with one hand.”
Cassa Dar glanced in his direction. “It is not Chi we are dealing with here, is it? It is not a male mage that stands before me. After Elena’s arrival in Shadowbrook, I searched ancient texts and scrolls in the castle library. Some scribes wrote of Sisa’kofa bearing two forms of magick—wit’chfire from the sun and coldfire from the moon.”
“We know that,” Er’ril said. “Elena has practiced both. If she renews in sunlight, she bears the power of fire. If she renews in moonlight, she bears the power of ice. This we already know.”
“Yes, but did you know that Sisa’kofa bore both at the same time?” Cassa Dar seemed to enjoy their surprised expressions. “An old text spoke thusly,” she continued. “ ‘Like two faces of a coin, so the wit’ch of spirit and stone bore her wild magicks, fire in her right fist, ice in her left.’ ”
“That’s impossible,” Er’ril said.
“But have you ever tried?” Cassa Dar asked, searching all their faces. “I didn’t think so.”
While the others debated, Elena studied her left hand and its twisted vines. Surely, as Er’ril had said, such a thing wasn’t possible. Before anyone could say otherwise or before her own fears could dissuade her, Elena raised her left hand into the moonlight and wished for power.
She gasped as her left hand vanished. The vines fell free from her arm, dead as if the roots had been cut off.
“Elena?” Er’ril said, finally realizing what she was doing.
With her body trembling, she pulled her arm down. Her missing hand returned.
Horrified, she held both arms up to the sky. Her right and left hands now matched. In the moonlight, both now swirled with the ruby stain of blood magicks.
28
THE BLOOD HUNTER made better progress once he reached the lake in the heart of the Drowned Lands. In the open water, the tangle of roots and the centuries of moldering debris that had clogged the narrow channels cleared from underfoot. The lake’s floor, a soft clay, was cluttered with only an occasional uprooted tree that had flushed into the lake from recent floods.
As in the swamps, huge creatures lurked here too: beasts with quick tails and arcing fins. A flurry of tentacles suddenly swept out of the dark waters to wrap around the hunter’s face, a beaklike mouth gnawing at his stone ear. He did not even bother to reach for it. His skin’s poison killed the attacker within two steps, and it fell away dead. Other lake creatures investigated but kept their distance. A school of blue phosphorescent fish swam close, then with a flash of bright light, darted away in unison like a startled flock of sparrows.
Yet his flaming red eyes saw none of this. He plodded through the muck, determined to reach his prey this night. Soon the lake grew so deep that even his magick-wrought vision had difficulty piercing the midnight waters. Nervous at his poor sight, he forced his way to the lake’s surface and tested the air.
Lightning still scented the winds. She was close.
As he struggled to keep his stone form afloat, he peered ahead. In the distance, seen as a phantom through the moonlit mists, rose a huge structure. He squinted his eyelids. The black magick sharpened his vision enough to pierce the whorled layers of fog. A structure of stone and mortar, draped in vines and moss, rose from the waters and reached toward the moon.
He stopped paddling and sank back into the murk. She was there! The wit’ch’s spoor marked the night breezes flowing from the ancient structure. As soon as his feet settled into the clay of the lake floor, he forged on into the depths of the lake. He now knew where he was going. This time he would stay hidden in the deep waters. She would not sense him and slip away again.
As he marched, something huge passed nearby, its form hidden by the black waters. Only a shifting of shadows and a flash of an eye revealed its presence. Then it was gone.
Fearing nothing, he pushed on.
Soon the waters grew so deep that even his stone skin felt the depth’s pressure, and the inky darkness was complete. He did not see the submerged castle until it suddenly loomed up directly in front of him.
Out of the gloom appeared the lower levels of the castle whose
tower protruded from the lake. Its first floors lay half submerged in silt and clay. Tumbled stones marked where ancient battering rams had toppled its outer walls. He climbed past the piled and crumbling rubble to the inner courtyard. Ahead, wide doors lay open to the lake, shattered by old axes and pikes. Broken windows still held shards of glass, appearing like the fanged mouths of aquatic predators.
Torwren pushed into the lower levels of the submerged castle. Furniture and human bones lay underfoot, both crumbling to a soft mire under his stone tread. Algae lay thick upon the wall sconces, and waving fronds of kelp grew from between the bricks of the floor. Overhead, an ornate chandelier in the grand entryway now drooped with curtains of a thick black moss, reaching like limp fingers toward him.
As he continued toward the staircase, crabs scuttled from underfoot and a freshwater lobster scooted behind a large porcelain vase. Schools of darting fish fled his intrusion into their home. Another of the tentacled creatures shot a soft green cloud of glowing dye at him and vanished in its wake.
Undeterred, Torwren paused at the base of the grand staircase, its marbled steps now slick with algae. He meant to mount the stairs and begin the climb, but deep inside him, something stirred, a sliver of spirit that called him down rather than up. For a moment, he pictured a treasure awaiting in caves below the castle.
Frowning, he shook his head at this odd thought and shoved aside this errant desire, ignoring the small scream deep inside him. His path lay up, not down.
The blood hunter took to the stairs and began the long climb toward the lake’s surface. His savage grin chased away his momentary hesitation. Creatures fled from his approach, and ancient bones smashed underfoot.
Somewhere above awaited his true treasure—the tender heart of his prey.
ELENA LOWERED HER hands. At her feet lay the remains of the choker’s nest vines that had plagued her. While she should have been happy to be rid of them, the cost was too high. She stared at her left hand. Whorls of dark ruby stain slowly swam across her skin.
She raised her gaze to find Er’ril’s wide eyes fixed upon her left hand. The usually stoic plainsman wore an expression of horror. Elena remembered how he had always shied away from the touch of her right hand when its stain was exposed. Now, with both her hands cursed with dire magicks, she felt as if a barrier had been raised between her and the plainsman. As long as her left hand had been normal, she had been able to reconcile herself with her wit’ch heritage, claiming herself at least half a woman; with her left hand plain, she had been able to touch the world like any normal person.
Staring into Er’ril’s stunned face, she knew a part of her had died with the choker’s nest. As Cassa Dar had dropped her facade and revealed the d’warf inside, Elena was forced to shed her own illusions.
She was not an ordinary woman. She was a wit’ch.
Tears rose in her eyes, and she sank to her knees atop the tower.
Mycelle appeared at her side and swept her up in her arms, kneeling beside her. “Hush, child,” she whispered. “You are strong enough to handle this. You have your mother’s intelligence and your Aunt Fila’s backbone.”
“But . . . I . . . I’m so scared,” she sobbed. She could not meet her aunt’s eyes.
Mycelle pulled back and wiped the tears from Elena’s cheeks. Then she raised Elena’s hands, not showing any shyness about her ruby flesh. “These are not curses,” she said. “These are your wings. Like a fledgling teetering at the edge of a nest and scared to fly, you will overcome your fears and learn to soar.” She clasped Elena’s hands between her own and leaned close to Elena’s face, staring her in the eye. “A hawk without its wings is not a hawk. This is who you are, Elena. Do not fear what makes you soar above others.”
“But . . . I don’t want any of this.”
Mycelle settled back to her heels before Elena. “You are no longer a child, Elena. Sometimes responsibilities are thrust upon you when you are least prepared. Growing up means bearing the burden of responsibility as best you can and doing what must be done.”
Elena sniffed back tears as Fardale nudged her arm with his nose. She glanced to his amber eyes. Images entered: Wolves standing together as a pack. Bitches fostering each other’s litters while others hunted. Males teaming up to bring down a deer. Elena understood. In this matter, she did not stand alone. She was part of a pack.
She placed her palm on the wolf’s cheek, silently thanking him. Then, taking a deep breath, she pushed to her feet. Mycelle stood beside her, a hand still on Elena’s shoulder. Elena stared squarely at Er’ril for a silent heartbeat. The plainsman’s stoic demeanor had returned, but in his eyes, Elena noted a glimpse of genuine concern.
Cassa Dar shambled over to them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for all this to upset you.”
“It’s not your fault,” Elena said. “I needed to learn this eventually.”
Cassa Dar nodded but seemed suddenly distracted. She glanced out toward the mist-shrouded night and stared silently.
“Is something wrong?” Elena asked.
The d’warf woman did not move. “I’m not sure,” she finally mumbled. “I thought I sensed something, but then it was gone.”
Er’ril nudged Mycelle. “Are you sensing anything unusual?”
Mycelle’s eyes narrowed. “There are too many whirling magicks about this castle for me to seek clearly.”
They all turned to the d’warf woman. She remained frozen for a few moments more, then shook her head and turned to them. “I don’t like this. Perhaps we’d better see about retrieving the Try’sil and getting you all on your way. Come,” she said, glancing back one last time before leading them toward the tower stair. “We must go down to where the lake has claimed the castle.”
She guided them back to the kitchens, where the remains of their meal had already been cleared by her servants. She continued past this chamber and deeper into the interior of the great tower. At the end of a curving hall, they reached a wide staircase winding down toward the heart of the castle. Fresh torches flickered in bronze sconces, marking the way down. “Come this way,” Cassa Dar said. “It’s a long climb, but it’s all downhill.”
Er’ril stayed by Elena’s side as they took to the stairs. Ever wary, he kept his hand on the pommel of his sheathed sword. “You don’t have to do this, Elena,” he said. “Free of the wit’ch’s curse, we can leave for the coast at dawn.”
“No, this Try’sil may prove a potent weapon against the Dark Lord’s black magick. It’s foolish to pass by such a tool.” She glanced up to Er’ril. “Besides, I gave my word.”
He nodded, almost as if she had passed some test. She felt a momentary flash of ire at his attitude. The journey continued in silence.
Mycelle and Jaston were ahead of them, conversing with Cassa Dar in low tones. Fardale padded silently behind them, a dark shadow on the stair. Halfway down, they came upon one of the swamp boys waiting with fresh drinks and a platter of cheeses. They rested for a short time.
During this break, Mycelle stepped up to where Er’ril and Elena sat on the stair. “I’ve been talking with Cassa,” she said, settling beside them.
“Has she had more of those strange feelings?” Elena asked, worry itching at her resolve.
Mycelle patted the girl’s knee. “No. All seems quiet.”
“Then what were you talking about?” Er’ril asked.
“I was curious about the fusing of her spirit with the land. I find it interesting. I’ve traveled through other marshlands and swamps along the coast but have never encountered such a poisonous land as this. Well versed in toxins myself, I can assure you that the variety of venoms in these swamps is astounding.”
“What of it?” Er’ril asked, fingering a chunk of a peppered cheese.
Mycelle lowered her voice. “I have a theory. I think these lands are a reflection of her spirit. Somehow when the land took a part of her essence, I think it also took a bit of her knowledge of poisons taught to her by the assassins, utilizing her skills a
s a poisoner for its own protection.”
“Is that possible?” Elena asked. “I thought that the land’s elemental magick was just raw power. Do you think there is some form of intelligence in this magick? Something that could interpret the memories of the swamp wit’ch and put them to use?”
Mycelle shrugged. “I don’t know, but I find it intriguing.” She nodded farther down the stair, to where Jaston and Cassa Dar were still deep in some discussion. “But it seems I’m not the only one who finds the wit’ch’s company interesting.”
The d’warf woman laughed at something Jaston said. The swamper waved his hand in the telling of some story. He, too, wore a grin. His shyness with his features was absent as he talked with Cassa Dar. It seemed that compared to the wracked and wrinkled form of the d’warf, Jaston did not find his own scars so troublesome.
Elena glanced to her aunt. A slight frown shadowed Mycelle’s lips as she stared at the two of them. “Perhaps we’ve rested long enough,” Mycelle said. “I’d like to retrieve this d’warf hammer and be on our way with the first rising of the sun. We’ve still a long way to reach the coast.”
Her aunt pushed to her feet, drawing them after her.
The last leg of the journey was made in silence, everyone lost in thought. The remainder of the descent passed slowly. Just as Elena was wondering if the steps would ever end, the staircase suddenly widened enough that a battalion of men could have marched the steps abreast, and the stairs soon emptied into a cavernous chamber. Decaying frescoes marked the high ceiling, and four huge chandeliers, long and dark, hung down, their burnished surfaces now stained with green-and-black scars.
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