“I don’t think I am strong enough!”
“You have to be strong enough! You take Marella and Rikard, and I will take Gondrial and Shey. Do it now!”
Ramzi grabbed ahold of Marella’s hand and she instinctively pulled back, but he did not let her go. He grabbed Rikard’s hand.
“Take a deep breath and hold it,” Ramzi said. In a brief moment, Shey was horrified to see all three of them sink into the ground. Before she could react, or scream, Sanmir had her hand and she too slipped straight down as if she was falling. She was suddenly blind, but she could feel Sanmir pulling on her, pulling her through the ground! She felt sluggish, like trudging through heavy muddy water. Occasionally she felt a strong tug on her body where Sanmir was pulling her through denser ground. She tried to draw a breath, but just like being underwater, she failed. Her lungs began to burn as she struggled against suffocation. She felt weak and tried to let go of Sanmir’s hand, but he held on to her forearm. They surfaced from beneath the ground, and she gasped for breath, gulping in the air.
“We aren’t far enough out of danger. Take a deep breath and hold it. We will be under longer this time.” Shey could see Ramzi surfacing nearby with Rikard and Marella. Her friend slumped to the ground. Distraught that Marella might be in trouble, Shey tried to stop Sanmir, but it was too late. Before she could get a good breath, they were back beneath the ground where it was impossible for her to tell Sanmir she wasn’t ready. She tried to tug on the sand elf’s hand to let him know, but he did not waver. He pulled her along at a rapid pace. Her lungs had already began to burn again. She gulped and gasped to no avail. Her head began to hurt, her lungs felt like they were collapsing, her skin felt like a thousand tiny fingers were pulling it back. She knew she was about to pass out until she was finally above ground again. She immediately drew in a few gasps of air. Sanmir let her go as he collapsed to the ground. They had traveled miles in the short time they were underground. They were almost to the edge of the canyon. After Shey finished gasping for air, she began to cough until she retched. Nearby, Gondrial was gasping for air too.
Shey wanted to lie down and go to sleep, but the sound of Marella screaming roused her. Sanmir too. He managed to get up and go stagger toward the edge of the canyon. “Thunder! Ramzi went too far. He came out of the cliffside.” Gondrial pulled himself up, and they all three went to peer over the edge of the cliff. Ramzi was hanging out of the hole he had made on the outside edge of the cliff, holding Marella and Rikard dangling. Shey began to draw essence, but she was weak. Sanmir made two fists, and Shey felt a rush of wind. The cliffside stretched out, and the earth folded beneath Rikard and Marella like a huge hand and brought all three of them to the top. After they were safe, Sanmir let the earth fall back down the cliff below, and he fell to the ground, blood oozing from his nose.
Rikard crawled over to him and put his hands on Sanmir’s head. He used his power of healing before he too collapsed beside the sand elf. “I think I helped him,” Rikard said before he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Shey went to Marella. Her friend blinked at her. “Don’t ever let them do that to me ever again!” Shey let out a happy chortle.
When Shey woke, there was a campfire going and food cooking, which reminded her that her stomach still roiled from the jaunt underground. She managed to sit upright. Marella, Rikard, and Gondrial still slept.
“Ah, you are awake,” Sanmir said. “It is very important that you eat and drink something. I assume that was your first time going to ground.” She nodded. “Come over here and eat.”
“I can’t. I will not be able to hold it down.”
“You have to. There is a reason why we do not travel through the ground long distances often. Your insides get all twisted and your digestion stops working. You have to eat to keep it working.”
Shey moved over to the fire. “That can’t be the only reason. That was entirely unpleasant.”
“It isn’t so bad once you get used to it. Your folk tend to die if you are under for too long. You can’t breathe while underground like we have learned to do.”
Shey took a bite of the fried meat and pan biscuits; the sand elves called the biscuits scones. She forced the bite down her throat. Sanmir handed her a skin of water to wash it down.
“We don’t usually fry meat, but this was an emergency,” Ramzi said.
“As long as you cook it all the way through, you can’t really fail at it,” Shey said. “What kind of meat is this?”
“A delicacy, sand lizard,” Sanmir told her.
She felt it come right back up. She dropped the plate and ran from the camp, retching not too far away.
“We must have fried it wrong,” Ramzi said. “I told you to flip it sooner.”
“Well, I didn’t know. How am I supposed to know how to fry something?”
Gondrial and Rikard were waking up when Shey returned to the campfire. Marella stirred soon after. Shey made a point to lean in toward Sanmir and Ramzi. “Don’t tell them the meat is sand lizard if they ask, all right?”
Chapter 8: Lurking Evil
Gondrial sat by the fire, munching on the food prepared by Sanmir and Ramzi. His appetite was apparently much stronger than Shey’s had been when she awoke. He was on his second helping before Rikard and Marella finished their first.
“May I assume an attack by so many . . . undead, as you say, is unusual in Darovan?” Gondrial asked. “I’m curious, why do you call them undead instead of unlife? They are still dead, but they are definitely not alive in any way.”
“The magic of Darovan has created, shall we say, unique situations here. Our sages have pioneered several techniques in magic that only now reach your shores, I am told. The desert wastes have been witness to curses, enchantments, and other divinations. The jungles of Darovan to the south have produced the most deadly poisons and also the most helpful medicines in the world. I myself have studied them as an apothecary. Darovan is as old as Lux Amarou to the north, only we still live on our lands, where the men of Lux Amarou have fled to Trigothia, due to their failed magical experiments,” Sanmir answered. “And as to why we say undead instead of unlife, I have no clue. I guess because they died, were buried, and then brought back again. Unlife makes it sound like they are alive again somehow.”
“So, it’s not normal?” Gondrial stated again. He took another bite of meat. “Unlife, undead, I guess it’s all the same. I have heard people besides Darovanians call them undead.”
“Who can say what’s normal for anywhere?” Sanmir said. “It’s not normal for you to be here either.” He doodled in the sand with his finger. “Although, to command such an overwhelming force of undead would require the magic of more than a mere necromancer.”
“Sanmir, be careful what you say,” Ramzi warned.
Gondrial snapped his fingers. “Undead on the scale we witnessed today can only be the work of your Lich! It must have followed us from Fariq.” He gazed at Ramzi. “You don’t want him to talk about the Lich? What are you sand elves hiding?”
Ramzi gave Sanmir a stern gaze. “We didn’t want to worry any of you until we were sure, but now that you know our suspicions, I must insist you allow us to search your persons.”
“What?” Shey interjected. “You wish to search us? For what?”
“He’s right. One of you must be carrying something from Fariq the Na’ Ne’ edeen, the Lich, wants to recover.”
Gondrial drank a gulp of water and recapped his waterskin. “I understand.” He motioned for Shey and Marella to calm down. “The Arillian elves tell a story to frighten children into not stealing. It’s called The Lich’s Phylactery. The gist of it is that a Lich keeps part of its soul, or essence, in a vessel to achieve immortality. In the story, a doomed girl takes an amulet that turns out to be the vessel. You don’t want to accidently steal the Lich’s phylactery or he will find you and turn you into his unlife minion forever.”
Shey gave Marella an uneasy stare. The story sounded a lot like the experiments with the jad
e statuettes perpetrated by Morgoran and Toborne. She broke eye contact. “None of us have any such thing. It must be something else, some other reason.”
“I cannot allow you to rummage through our possessions,” Gondrial said. “That’s not our way.” He stood and addressed his companions. “However, it is our custom to ask for honesty. Rikard, Shey, Marella, did any of you take anything from Fariq? I mean, besides the waterskins. I don’t think a Lich would put his essence in such a common thing. Did any of you take an amulet, a ring, a jewelry box, or something you thought to be mere trinkets?”
“We didn’t have time to steal!” Marella said. “I find the whole accusation or insinuation repugnant. I am a princess of Ardenia. I do not steal.”
Ramzi rolled his eyes.
“I see you rolling your eyes, Ramzi sand elf! Do you find my testimony trivial in some way?”
Ramzi didn’t acknowledge her. He focused on Shey instead.
“Marella’s right. I, personally, was in a hurry to get out of that place. It never occurred to me to explore the place for loot.”
Rikard cleared his throat. “I would think a Lich would keep his phylactery in a safe place, not lying about where anyone could just wander by and pick it up. The notion that one of us took something of value is preposterous.”
“There you have it. I know I didn’t pilfer anything from that wretched place. Now that we have confessed, perhaps it is one of you who the Lich is after. After all, Asad was one of you.”
Ramzi clenched his teeth and took a step toward Gondrial. Sanmir stopped him. “It’s all right, Ramzi, I don’t think he was showing disrespect for our dead on purpose.”
“I will have your head on a pike if you say anything like that again, outlander!”
“You would have to take it from me first!”
“Stop it!” Sanmir said. “We do not carry anything a Lich would want. Asad was Ramzi’s cousin. I think you should apologize, Gondrial.”
“I can’t apologize. It was idiotic for you two to accuse us in the first place!”
“Apologize!” Ramzi insisted.
“All right, I apologize you’re an idiot.”
Shey stood between Gondrial and Ramzi. “This gets us nowhere. I apologize for my friend if he won’t.” She momentarily gave Gondrial a severe stare. “We are sorry that Asad was lost. Now, please, can we get back to planning our next move and leave this posturing behind us? I’m ready to get out of this desert. I will be cleaning sand out of my things for weeks!”
Ramzi relaxed. “Our next move is simple. We head down into the canyon. We go now, tonight.”
“Why tonight? Wouldn’t it be better to go at first light? It’s dark,” Rikard asked.
Sanmir let Ramzi sit back down on the ground. “We can see well in the dark. You will be in little danger.”
“You don’t need to see, anyway, because what comes next cannot be seen,” Ramzi said with a half-smile.
“What was that?” Gondrial asked.
“The Unseen, scouts for the Lich, they are probably already hunting us. The longer we linger, the closer they come.”
Shey bolted up. “I know a spell. Toborne taught me how to see in the dark. I will use it on Marella, Rikard, and me. It may also allow us to see these creatures.”
Ramzi shook his head. “They are called the Unseen for a reason. They are invisible to magic as sure as they are invisible to sight. If we don’t find out why the Lich is hunting us, they will likely find us and tear us apart.”
“Not helping, Ramzi,” Sanmir said. “All right, everyone get up. We need to move.”
Shey cast the sight spell on all who could not see in the dark naturally. “Do they make a sound at least?”
“Aye, they do, but by the time you hear them, it’s too late,” Ramzi said.
Sanmir doused the dying fire with sand. “He is exaggerating. They are said to howl to each other like wolves. The fact is, we only know about them from stories.”
“Oh, much better,” Marella said. She hefted her pack over her shoulder.
Sanmir led the party to the edge of the canyon and searched for the narrow trail that would lead them back and forth along the rim, descending into the Scar of Darovan. He found the trail after he located the road from Saleed, which ended where the trail began. The path down was only wide enough for single file. If Shey had not cast night vision, she wasn’t sure how the elves would’ve been able to lead them without one of them falling to their deaths.
As treacherous as it was to descend into the canyon, Shey often looked over her shoulder. The story of the Unseen had her worried. Creatures hunting them that she couldn’t even see gave her the shivers. About halfway down the canyon rim, she froze in fear when the first howls sounded. She managed to suppress her fear and get going again, but the familiar rush of adrenaline was back as soon as Sanmir picked up the pace, almost to the point where every step was dangerous. Shey’s fear of the Unseen pushed her recklessly onward.
“Slow down!” Marella pleaded with them both. “Whether the Unseen attacks or I fall, I’m just as dead.”
“We will be at the bottom soon,” Sanmir said. “We need to put some more distance between us and them.”
“Is there any place to hide when we get to the bottom?” Shey asked. “How do you fight something you can’t see?”
“I hope so,” Sanmir said, “but I have never been down in the scar. I have only viewed it from above.” He seemed to ignore Shey’s last question.
Ramzi, who was bringing up the rear, yelped as he fell arms-first to the trail and was pulled backward up the slope by an unseen force, his feet up in the air. Marella spun her quarterstaff at the void behind his feet and struck end first. Something yapped and let go of Ramzi. The sand elf scrambled up, kicking behind him. Marella swung again and pushed the invisible creature over the edge.
“Get down the trail; the Unseen are on us,” Ramzi said as he steadied himself. Adrenaline replaced fear as the driving force behind the group of travelers. No longer worried about falling, they took long strides to get down the path. They all nearly skidded down the last few expanses of rock and dirt to the canyon floor. Sanmir stopped to help the others off the trail, and then he sprinted behind them away from the canyon edge. The trail joined up with a curved road.
“I think this road leads to the river. There is a pier there where riverboats dock to receive goods to transport to the ships waiting in the gulf,” Sanmir said. “If we can get there, we may be able to get away downriver.”
The absence of noise from behind didn’t dissuade them from their goal of reaching the boat docks. After a while, the adrenaline-fueled sprint subsided into a huffing and puffing jog. Although their packs were not particularly heavy, they seemed to increase in weight with every step. Shey could feel her calves burning, and her thighs began to quiver from the strain. She knew she couldn’t keep up the pace much longer. She imagined the others were just as tired, except the sand elves, who were used to the climate, heat, and distances. At last, she could see the river and hear the glorious sound of rushing water. A howl in the distance renewed her resolve, and she pushed to get to the docks. As luck would have it, there was one riverboat tied to the dock. Sanmir was the first to reach it, followed closely by Ramzi and then Rikard. By the time Shey reached the dock, Sanmir had already talked the captain into taking them downriver.
The crew cast off the ropes securing the boat. The last man, still on the dock, abruptly lost his throat in a bloody spray. Howls and whimpers of frustration came from the pier as the current caught the boat and pushed it far enough away.
Shey paused to catch her breath. Marella was beside her, breathing just as heavy.
“An unnatural storm comes,” a crewman said.
Shey looked up to see the skies swirling above intermingled with lightning. “Marella, forgive me for asking, but did you pick up anything in Fariq? I won’t be mad.”
“Not I. What about you?”
“No, nothing. Do you think it could be
the waterskins? What does this Lich want that he would chase us so relentlessly?”
“I don’t know!”
Shey happened to make eye contact with Rikard. For a moment, he looked sad, as if he knew why the Lich pursued them, and then his eyes reverted downward. “Rikard?”
Rikard glanced back up at her and shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The already tumultuous river began to heave even more as the storm blew in. As soon as he regained his breath, Sanmir began to concentrate. Shey watched in awe as the storm began to subside, and then Sanmir fell to the deck and the storm strengthened.
“It’s him. He has ahold of the storm. I am not strong enough to fight him,” Sanmir said.
The captain of the ship joined them on deck. “The current will carry us down the river away from the storm, I think,” he told them. The rain began to come down in sheets just after he spoke.
The captain barked out some orders about securing the hatches when his voice trailed off. His eyes went wide with fear, and he began to make a gurgling sound.
“Captain? Captain!” Shey reached out for the man, but he fell to the deck in convulsions. The helmsman slumped over his wheel, and the ship turned toward shore. In the rain, Shey could see footprints appearing on the deck. As the rain fell harder, she could see the outline of a beast standing upright coming toward her. Its head had a snout like a dog. She drew in essence and released it at the creature. It became engulfed in a cascade of lightning. “They are onboard,” Shey shrieked to the others.
“It doesn’t matter,” Gondrial said. He pointed to shore. The boat was rushing straight for the embankment. “Hold on!” The boat struck the underwater rocks jutting from the shore, and Sanmir was thrown off. The crew scrambled to get control, but the strong current of the river battered the boat’s hull against the sharp rocks below and it began to break apart and take on water. Shey and Marella leaped from the deck to the water nearest the shore and climbed up through the rocks to a sandy bank, just avoiding a piece of the boat as it again bashed into the embankment of rocks and shattered like a child’s toy. The rest of the boat followed behind and crashed hard into the rock embankment and broke in half. Shey and Marella crawled up to Gondrial, Sanmir, and Ramzi on the shore. Rikard had also escaped the boat and was lying facedown up the shore.
Wielder: Adept: Book 2 of Lady Shey's Story (The Wielder Cycle) Page 7