“It’s ok,” she said. “I’m getting a little stronger. I can hold onto the sides.” She stretched out her arms and gripped the stone walls. The knife was awkward in her hand as she tried to hold onto both it and the wall.
“Do you want me to take it?” I asked her.
“No,” she said. “It’s better if I keep hold of it.”
I took the lead.
“So,” she began as she walked, “if memory serves me, we will have some time in this passage, even if we make haste. We can share our stories now. We do not know what will await us on the outside.”
“Ok,” I said. “But where are we going to go when we get out of here?”
“The link lies on the other side of the grasslands. This land is not large, and Father gave me many details about how to get there. It lies in a cave where the rock meets the water. Father told me the signs to look for along the edge of the sea.”
“That doesn’t sound very exact,” I said. “It’s the sea. That could be anywhere.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “But what other choice have we? We are hunted now. It is the only way I know to escape him.”
“But—” I stopped walking and turned again.
“What do you propose?” she interrupted. “The jadestone brought you to me, but I am not a paper map or an amulet imbued with the power of travel. Do you think such things would have survived with me back there for all these years? If you want to go back, or anywhere other than here, then this is the only way I know.” She folded her arms across her chest resolutely. “And every time you stop, you allow the Corentin to come closer to us. We must move.”
How could such a little girl already have this type of attitude? And then I remembered, she was a little girl in body only. Her mind was that of a woman, over two hundred years old.
I turned and continued down the passageway. She was right. We couldn’t spend more time arguing, or if we did, it would have to be while we walked. Cadoc was coming. Jade might be able to fight him with her powers, but I had nothing like that to defend myself with. Besides, I had no better plan.
“Your father left you the link?” I asked. “But I thought Almara was the one who hid it.”
“They are one and the same,” she said.
“Almara is your father?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes, of course he is,” she said dismissively, as if I should have guessed this. “Brendan was to find me, and hopefully free me with whatever primitive magic he gained from his travels. But he did not return for me, and neither did my father. Brendan,” her voice caught in her throat, “was my brother.”
This brought me up short and I turned and stared at her again. She stopped walking abruptly, almost running into me, and her eyes fell to the floor. This little girl standing before me was my great, great grandfather’s little sister. Just a moment ago she had been bossing me around. But now…
I opened my mouth to speak, but then I realized I had no idea what to say. What a mess I was in. What kind of family was I from, anyways? Finally I asked the question.
“If your father is Almara, why didn’t he come back for you?”
“He tried,” she said, a lonely tear sliding down her cheek. “He could not break my bonds.”
“So he just left you there?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” she almost shouted. “I don’t know why Father didn’t come back. I don’t know why Brendan didn’t come back.” Tears began pouring in earnest from her downcast eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand.”
She began to move again, her quiet sobs echoing in the narrow tunnel. But I didn’t let her pass.
I had never had a sister or brother, or even a friend, no one my age to care about before now. But she was so sad that I opened my arms and wrapped them around her tiny frame. She stiffened at the contact at first, but then her misery overcame her and she wailed into my shoulder.
“Father and Brendan fought,” she said, her voice muffled through the fabric of my shirt. “Father didn’t want Brendan to go, but he was determined that answers would be found on Earth. After he left, and I was taken, Father realized that he could not free me from Cadoc’s prison. He told me Brendan would come for me, that he would follow the links and come for me. But nobody ever came. And I—and I—”
“It’s ok,” I said to the top of her head. “Everything is going to be ok now.” How many times had my mother held me and said the same thing? “You’re free now. And you are never going back in there. Do you understand me?” I pried her arms from around my middle and put my hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look me in the eye. “Never.”
Her watery eyes doubted my words, but gradually they began to change from fear and misery into something different.
Resolve.
She nodded.
“Now let’s get out of here,” I said. I turned and continued our escape. Following me I could just make out the sound of her soft footfalls.
We walked for some time in silence. I didn’t want to make her cry again, especially considering our current danger. But after several minutes she spoke.
“Tell me,” she said. “How did you come to be here?”
I began telling my story. I told her about the attic, the details about each land I had been to, about how I could run now, here in this world, but not in my own. I told her about how Kiron’s tale had reflected so perfectly the ills that had befallen Earth in the past hundred years. The distasteful tale of the prisoners in Stonemore and my brush with Cadoc came next. And finally, I sadly relayed the story of the wolf.
“You have experienced much of the Fold,” she said when I was finally done, “but I fear you have been led astray. Certainly there is much you do not understand.”
I didn’t respond, unsure of whether or not she was taking a jab at me for my ignorance about Maylin and Almara.
“The wolf is not dead, you know,” she said. “Do not let his departure trouble you.”
I thought about these words, took them in and swirled them around inside me, trying to determine if they were really true.
“How do you know?” I finally asked.
“He is a member of the White Guard. Your seeing him is impressive. It means that you must be very important, indeed. To have a member of the White Guard reach out to help a human is very, very rare. I misjudged you. Perhaps there is more to you than what is apparent.”
We walked for a few minutes in silence while I mulled this all over. I certainly did seem to be good at this questing stuff, if you considered all I had accomplished. Freeing the prisoners in Stonemore and releasing the princess from her cave were pretty big feats, things that had been attempted for hundreds of years before now. And here I was, just a sick kid from another world, and I had managed both in a matter of weeks.
“What do you know about people coming to the Fold from other places?” I asked.
“Not much,” she admitted. Her breathing was less ragged the longer we walked. “There was a story I heard long ago from Father, about travelers making enormous jumps like you have, but I was very young. And then, of course, Brendan left us.”
“Why did he go?” I asked.
She sighed. “He had to, really. He and my father quarreled frequently, so I do not think he was sad to go, but he certainly expected to return back shortly after. He was the one of the eight chosen to seek help in other worlds, but Father felt that Earth was too far, too unstable, for him to make the leap. I was too young to join the quest, but my power was undeniable, even to my father. With him I crafted the link that sent Brendan to your world.”
“You know how to make links?” I asked. “Why don’t you just make one to send us to Almara right now?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” she said. “One must know where he wishes to arrive before crafting a link. We know not where my father landed after he left this place. Our only choice is to make haste to the location of the link he left for me.”
“But,” I
continued, “if you know how to make a link then can’t you send me back to Earth?”
“I cannot,” she said. “My knowledge of stones did help Father with Brendan’s link, but I could not do such a thing on my own. I am no cartographer. Besides, Earth is not stable.”
Perfect.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Earth lies within the boundaries of the Fold, but on the far edges. The Fold moves, vibrates, and Earth being so far away from the center vibrates more than the planets closer in. Imagine a rose held up in the wind. The air would flutter the edges of the outer petals, but barely touch those in the center. It is like this with Earth, perched on the very tip of the outermost petal of the rose. It is not stable, and nearly impossible to plot. One must be a master.”
I remembered the argument between Kiron and Larissa, about whether the Fold had a center at all. It seemed that everyone had differing opinions on the matter.
“What is a Corentin?” I asked. “I heard that word before, and you said earlier that we had to escape the Corentin.”
“You know not the Corentin?” she asked. “It is strange to me that you have come so far, and know so much, and yet the most basic knowledge seems to elude you. The Corentin is the force that has taken over Cadoc’s mind. It means hurricane of death. Cadoc was once not Cadoc at all, but Zarich of Stonemore. I knew him as a young girl, and I was playmates with his little daughter, Amelia. He led Stonemore and was loved by his people. When Almara first came to the city, Zarich helped him. They worked together for a time, trying to find the answers to the evils that plagued Maylin.
“Then, one day Amelia fell ill. She lay in her chambers for weeks as she wasted away from sickness. They tried my elixir on her, but it did not help. Zarich spent every moment tending to her, his work with Father forgotten. How could he have seen it as having any importance at all, with his baby’s needs so great? Father let me visit her only once, but she could not hear me. Her eyes stared into the air, glazed and unmoving. She died a few days later.”
Jade fell silent. We walked on in silence. She continued several moments later, a hoarse tone to her voice.
“After Amelia’s death, my father and Zarich began arguing. Over time it became apparent that they could no longer work with one another. Zarich was acting with increasing strangeness, and my father had forbidden me to speak with him. Then, one night Zarich attempted to murder my father while he slept. A great battle ensued, and the whole of Stonemore’s army was directed to fight against my father and his followers.”
Her breathing grew heavy for a time with either emotion or fatigue. I waited for her to catch her breath.
“I was lost. The battle was so chaotic, and I was unable to locate Father again to flee with him. His followers were dying. The fate of the Fold rested with him. He had to go. Zarich turned aside, though, and didn’t chase him further. I was the prize he had sought all along.”
I couldn’t believe it. She had been left alone in the middle of a battle by her own father? But then I thought, sounds familiar.
It felt strange to be having such a dark conversation with a young girl. Really, she looked only eight or nine years old. But her mind had grown, even if her body had never followed suit. Really, it was amazing that she wasn’t completely mad.
I turned to her. “How is it that you are still alive? I mean, that battle was centuries ago, and you—and the prisoners in Stonemore—I don’t understand how all of this is possible.”
She leaned against the wall, too tired from the walking, or maybe from the misery that radiated from within and outlined her face now.
“It is my power,” she said. “When I was born it was obvious from my first breath of life that I had a gift. My mother had gifts of her own, and normally she would have been my guide, but she died when I was very little. Over time my gift was developed with the help of both my father and brother. What we didn’t know was that Zarich was watching from the shadows, the Corentin gradually overtaking him. Our every move was noted by him until, as his hidden dark power began to take control, he made his move.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you’re still alive,” I pointed out.
“No, I suppose not. You know it as the power of the Stone of Borna. I told you that I can use various stones in my craft. Well, when one mixes my power with that of granite,” she gestured to the walls around us, “I can create a healing draft. We developed it with the help of Zarich, with the intention to use it to heal the people of Stonemore from illness. We hoped that someday, maybe, the lands of all Maylin, everywhere in the Fold, could also benefit from its use. But the magic had more to it than we knew, and after my capture, Zarich, who renamed himself Cadoc, proved that extended use of the brew would bring the drinker an extension of life. This is the reason he brought me to this particular mountain.” She grimaced harshly, a look that did not suit her young face. “From time to time he comes, forcing me to produce the elixir for his own purposes, but offering me little sustenance to keep my own body alive but for that very same drink. This is how I became so weak.” She touched the jadestone lovingly. “Without jadestone I can live. I can drink the elixir and survive in the most basic way, as you saw. But with it,” she held the light above her head and the intensity of its glow increased tenfold. “With it I am more alive than most any other in the Fold.”
The jadestone pulsed and hummed from the connection with Jade. Her eyes took in the brightness eagerly, starved for light for centuries.
“So for all that time he was able to keep you trapped,” I stated.
“Yes,” she replied, lowering the stone. She pushed off the wall, and we began walking again. “Once, in the very early days of my imprisonment, one of the guards wore a small jadestone around his neck, carved with the crest of his family. They didn’t know then about my connection to that particular stone, but they knew soon after. I broke free with the use of the jadestone, just that tiny piece from his necklace, though I was caught soon after. I am small, after all,” she gestured to her petite body. “They never made that mistake again. I was soon locked behind the curtain, and I never escaped again. Until now.”
“How did you stand it?” I asked. “I mean, how could you, anyone, survive underground for hundreds of years without losing their mind?” I wondered about the prisoners in Stonemore, too, and how many other hidden underground prisons there were in the Triaden, full of Cadoc’s innocent victims, slowly being driven mad over centuries.
“I did go mad,” she answered. “After the first year or so, the rest is a blur; a long, unending nightmare of misery and loneliness. I have been mad all this time. Only now that I can hold the jadestone close to me do I feel some of my old self stirring inside. Only now can I even remember what life was like for the nine-year-old girl he took.”
We both fell silent. The sadness and desperation in each of our stories had finally proved to be too much to continue discussing. I realized that we shared a sort of bond, different as we were. Both of us were being hunted by a monster. Both of us were abandoned by our fathers. And both of us were focused on a return home.
After another half hour of picking our way back out through the mountain, we at last came to the edge of the crack that led into the gully. We stopped at the mouth of the opening and listened for any sign pursuit, but there was no sound. The horses had left the gully the night before, and now not even the croak of a cricket could be heard. We cautiously left the protection of the mountain.
Jade was silent as she crept out onto the loose stones, but her face shone with delight and relief in the moonlight. She stopped ten feet from the opening. She stood quite still, her neck craned upwards, basking in the glow of the heavens, breathing in the cold night air in long, deep breaths. Her thin nightgown clung to her body in the slight breeze and she shivered, but she didn’t seem to notice or care.
I dropped my pack and dug out the blanket from the snow lands. I draped it around her tiny frame, and only at the touch of my hands on her shoulders did sh
e look away from the sky and at me.
“Thank you,” she said. Any air of superiority had vanished. She looked at me with true appreciation.
I smiled, hoisting the pack onto my back again, and we both set off into the gully, led only by the moon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jade walked over the gully floor in silence. Her little feet may have not even touched the ground, but every time I looked behind me she was still there. It wasn’t until we were through the great crack that led to the grassy plains, and the sun began to rise, that she spoke again.
“Here,” she said. We had rounded the first corner after making it through the walls of rock that led from the gully to the plains, and the golden grass was laid out before us like a warm blanket over the earth.
I stopped and looked back to her. She was standing with both palms outstretched, and hovering in the air above them twirled the jade knife. It rotated slowly, and she closed her eyes and mumbled words I could not hear. The knife slowly came to a stop and pointed clearly in a single direction, as a compass would point due north. She opened her eyes and grasped it by the handle, tucking it into the folds of the blanket she wore. Then she held out her arm and gestured for me to head in the direction the knife had pointed.
“This way,” she said.
I gaped at her.
“How did you do that?”
She just smiled and started walking in the direction the knife had pointed.
We set out in the early morning sun, skirting around the edges of the grass. The grasslands that surrounded our right side were now deserted. The horses were gone, and not a single bird hovered overhead. Aside from the waving of the tall blades in the breeze, the place was almost lifeless. It reminded me of the feeling I would get back on the farm when a summer storm was brewing. The grass would blow in the gusts of wind, and the critters that remained would retreat to their shelters to wait out the storm. Far away on the horizon, I saw storm clouds gathering. We would have to find shelter before the rains came.
Aster Wood and the Lost Maps of Almara (Book 1) Page 20