Not trusting his voice, Sarn just nodded. He couldn’t lie, but neither did he want to know the truth because they were out of options. This had to work.
A dozen tentacles probed the shore seeking prey but found none. Everyone who was still alive, maybe a hundred people at a guess, were crowded on the island. So far, those tentacles were avoiding the water, but that stalemate wouldn’t last for long.
Sarn licked his lips then channeled Nolo as he snapped out orders, hoping this time they’d listen and act. “Everyone stand close together. Form a ring. Adults stand in front with children in the center. Everyone hold hands even the children. Hurry.”
“What’s that going to accomplish?” another woman asked. Her voice was high and sweet, but she was hidden in the crowd.
“I told you. It’s so Bear can save us. You can’t see him, but he’s there.” Ran pointed. “Tell them, Papa.”
“Just do it. There’s no time to explain.” Sarn pointed to those tentacles. Their tips twitched as they slithered toward the wavelets lapping the rocky shore. They moved as if they sensed the fear leaking out of everyone’s pores.
“Do what he says,” the last woman to arrive shouted, galvanizing the milling people. She put her son and daughter behind her, and the boy took Ran’s hand as she took Sarn’s.
An electric zing traveled across their clasped hands. What magic Sarn had left scanned her and assessed her threat level as nil. Her eyes widened at the shock and an accusation wrote itself across her face—freak.
Sarn looked away. Anger flared, but he squelched it. His eyes weren’t even glowing, but he still couldn’t pass for normal. It wasn’t fair. A muscle worked in his jaw.
Why are you doing this? They’ll just stone you the first chance they get. That’s what sheep do to those who are different, hissed a voice Sarn didn’t recognize.
But its defeatist attitude rankled him. For a split second, Sarn thought he saw a hooded man with a sickle smile. But when he looked again, a gnarled old man stood next to him, and the fellow didn’t look happy about it.
Coming here wasn't a mistake, Sarn told the doubting part of himself. If the Guardians of Shayari were alive today, they'd stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me. Oh, how his heart longed for their stalwart company.
The lake rippled as gray shapes rose from their depths. Had thoughts of his heroes summoned them? Heart in mouth, Sarn stared at the twelve apparitions stepping from the lake. Had they come to help? Hope rose as they raised misty swords and advanced, becoming less human and more dragonish with every step. Relief flooded Sarn. He wasn’t alone.
But who were they? Not Guardians of Shayari, no, the Guardians had all been human.
Ran tugged Sarn’s pant leg. “Are those dragons?”
Sarn shrugged. They had leathery wings folded on their backs, lashing tails and reptilian scales. But they strode erect on their three-toed feet as they unsheathed their broadswords. At a loss for how to classify these larger-than-human hybrids, Sarn looked to Bear for help.
Dryskellions, Bear said in awe as the dragonish warriors formed a line between the island and the shore.
“What's a Dryskellion?”
An ancient race of dragon-shifters. Now hush and enjoy the show.
The Dryskellions raised their swords, saluted heaven, then charged. Swords flashed as they fought, but the tentacles kept coming. Their wicked tips punched through those brave warriors dispersing their ghosts.
The last Dryskellion half-turned and locked gazes with Sarn. For a moment, the gray palette of ghosts gave way, rendering her in glorious color. Her magenta mane waved like a banner in the breeze behind her stocky, armored body.
Do what I can't, son of Adam, Sarn thought he heard her say.
Before she disintegrated, she nodded, passing the responsibility to him. Then she faded into a silver mist with the others. Their essence spun into a cloud and rained shining motes on Sarn. They clung to his clothes, caught in his hair, and dusted him with a fine coating of luminous silver. His skin tingled from their touch.
They can't be gone. Who’ll save us now?
“No!” Sarn shouted. The tentacles jerked at his bellow.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it now,” hissed the woman next to Sarn.
Ran pressed in close against the back of his legs. A baby whimpered and behind them, the pink lumir crystal glowed on as if there wasn’t a magic-stealing black mist curling about the shore. For now, that too was avoiding the water.
The pink lumir crystal called to Sarn, begging for his touch, and he backed toward its soothing presence. Nor was he the only one retreating to that crystal. The ring of adults contracted around the children, pushing them closer to that pulsating stone. Its roseate glow reached for Sarn. It was singing a song of protection that vibrated through his bones.
Ran ceded ground until his back struck the stone. He crouched and pulled the two children who held his hands down too. They huddled in a hollow between the bright magical rock and his father. They were safe at last.
“What are you doing?” hissed the woman next to Sarn. There was a note of fear in her voice. She nodded at the dozen tentacles shooting across the lake. They had only seconds to live if his plan failed.
Sarn tried to swing their clasped hands toward the crystal, but his sleeve had hardened. Sarn kept trying until it cracked, and his finger brushed cold crystal. If he was going to die, he’d do it as he’d lived—with magic in his veins. The instant his hand made contact, warm, electric green power rushed out of the lumir stone into his hand. It raced up his arm speeding toward his eyes where it burst forth wreathing his sight in its accustomed emerald glow.
Something is happening, but I’m not sure what, Bear said. Are you ready yet?
Sarn shook his head to clear it. Magic was flowing across his scalp in a warm, tingly caress that eased the dull ache behind his eyes. He felt almost human again. “Yes, do it.”
Brace yourself. This is going to sting a little. You’re not used to channeling. And whatever you do, don’t pass out.
Warning given, Bear touched his chest and Sarn’s sight dimmed. His skin itched as unfamiliar magic sliced deep, seeking his core. He was the conduit and his bones were melting as waves of molten power washed through him. His boots disintegrated, then his legs and torso.
Sweat trickled down his face, his back and under his arms. Sarn bit his lip to keep from screaming. Something inside him snapped and a green conflagration erupted.
Don't fight me. I can't channel through you if you don't let me. Do you hear me, Sarn?
He tried to nod, but everything was turning green, and death was speeding toward them.
Sarn! Sarn listen to me. Bear shook him.
But Sarn couldn't do anything until his magic let go.
“Papa? Please, listen to Bear. I want to live. Papa?”
“Help me. It won't let go.” And Fates help him, he didn't want it to.
Don’t Call Her
Gore rolled past grasping shadows and finally came to a halt after what felt like an eternity of tumbling down ill-made stairs. Coins danced and spun around his head, and there were sketchy things too, stretching translucent claws toward him.
But Gore didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t touch or smell, and these things were not corporeal. Therefore, they were just hallucinations.
So, it was safe enough to ignore the cold prickle along his spine, the brush of scales on his bare arms, the —
Not real, not real, not real! Gore screamed inside his mind. Go away!
But they were real. They undulated as they scraped the ceiling raining pebbles on his head. The stench of death filled his nostrils, and he coughed on it as a dark shape hurtled toward him.
Gore yelped as a body hit the ground. Oh, no, no, no, no. This is not real! Gore huddled against the pit’s wall as another corpse landed on the first one. Its dead eyes stared past him.
"I don’t believe in monsters!”
But his refusal meant nothing to the tentacle
s raining bodies into the chasm. Another one caught on a rock spur and dangled there, legs still kicking.
How had everything gone so horribly wrong? The con was so simple and so perfect. No one was supposed to get hurt—not even Psycho Zealot Girl. They were just going to fleece her out of as much gold as she’d part with.
The shadows lightened, revealing severed limbs and blood—so much blood. It coated the rocks around him, turning the lightening chasm scarlet. Gore thrust his hand into that perfect light.
What light can kindle in this place of death? Hope blossomed in his chest as Gore edged around a body that might have been a middle-aged woman once. Was his salvation at hand? He peered up at an impossible sight.
A tree-shaped silver blur that was far too small to be an actual tree leaped over the pit. The tentacles diving toward it dwarfed the glowing tree thing. It seemed to be the same size as the corpses falling past it. What the hell is it?
Gore didn't wonder for long. A tentacle slammed into the leaping tree, shattering the illusion. It transformed mid-air into a beautiful woman.
Oh, how she glowed. Her light reached into Gore illuminating the pile of gold that was his heart. Greed had served him well, just not today, but not all cons panned out. It’s the risk that makes the reward worthwhile. Dirk understood that. And where was that lout? Not sunk in this hell with me.
“I am what this place made me!” Gore pounded his fist against his breast. He sneered at her expecting her eyes to be cold and judgmental. But she didn’t even glance his way as she rebounded and dodged another tentacle bent on skewering her.
Her full-skirts billowed in the fell air wafting out of the heart of darkness below as she twisted aside, and two spines shot past her. At the apex of her leap, she threw something, and it flashed past Gore. It threaded through the corpses at his feet connecting them with a shimmering thread.
Gray hands extruded from the still chests of the dead. They grasped that thread, and hand over hand, ghosts exited their bodies. Their eyes remained fixed on the woman in white dancing with the many tentacles of death—she held all their strings in her gleaming hand. The grave silenced the praise on their translucent lips, but she heard it, and each word of thanksgiving intensified her glow.
“No!” Bellowed a black-robed man slashing his hands through the cords binding the dead and their fleeing souls. “You can't do this. You're dead and gone from this plane.” He fixed hateful eyes on her, but she didn’t flinch. She kept weaving a brilliant web to catch the souls climbing up to her.
“They are mine—my sacrifice! How dare you steal them!”
“They are my subjects, and I will never abandon them, Deceiver!”
She ran up a tentacle and launched herself at another one. This one had three bodies dangling from its tip. She embraced them, and they fell onto the rim. Blood-spattered her gown as she rose to her feet still cradling the broken body of a child. A scream tore out of her, and the mountain shook with her rage.
Gore’s mouth dropped open as a crystal spine extruded from behind and shot toward her. He knew who she was—Shayari’s Queen. Before he could shout the warning ripping up his windpipe, the spine punched through her chest. Silver ichor poured out of the wound as it withdrew. She wavered, and the threads binding her to the slain flickered as the dead child slid from her hands.
The souls she’d liberated grasped after her. Their mouths were rictus grins as shadows stuffed them back into their shattered bodies. But their eyes—oh, how they glittered with fear until the threads binding them to their savior firmed. But she was swaying.
Don’t fall, oh, God, don’t fall! Gore tried to shout, but a skeletal hand constricted his throat. The hooded man stood behind him, breathing in his ear.
“You can’t save them all, Witch Queen. Not when they give their hearts freely to me.”
The hooded man spun, and darkness punched Gore for the second time that day. As the ground rushed up to meet him, the shining woman fell to her knees. Her power pooled around her in a sparkling lake of silver fire.
Don’t fall, just don’t fall—Gore begged. His mind-voice echoed in his head but never made it past his lips. He fought the darkness contracting his vision, and kept his eyes fixed on the woman who held his salvation in her hands.
Her eyes were diamonds reflecting her determination. She would die before she ever gave up.
Don’t fall. But he was falling into the abyss with the hooded man, and there was no escape.
Thirteen razor-edged tentacles rushed toward Sarn and the hundred-people standing with him. If I don't get control of my magic fast, we're all going to die. Panic tore through Sarn making each breath shorter than the last. They were all counting on him, and he was failing them—just like he'd failed his son.
No, screamed his magic, but its voice was changing, growing deeper until it matched his own quiet timbre. We didn't fail him. His mother did. She left. We stayed. We've been there every day of his life. And we won't fail him now.
Bear was shouting something and Ran too. But magic, clean and green as a summer's day, exploded out of Sarn knocking those killing feelers away. He threw everything he'd borrowed from the lumir crystal at them, leaving nothing for himself.
Bear shook him. Stay with me, Kid. That was brave but stupid. You can only take so much abuse.
Sarn slumped against the dimming lumir stone. Had he harmed the thing attacking them? He wanted to look, but his eyes were so heavy. Sleep was calling him by name, so was Bear, and so was the magic inside the lumir crystal. His thirsting body pulled power from the stone, and he pushed it outward describing a sparkling green dome over the island.
Stop it. You can't keep that shield going forever. Not when the power fueling it is coming from outside you. And that power is finite in this magically drained place.
Indeed, the shield buckled under the onslaught of those tentacles, and its glow waned as the crystal’s did. Screams momentarily deafened Sarn.
Let it go. Let me channel through you. I have access to far more power than you do right now.
Sarn shook his head. “I can't. I don't know how.” He cringed as a section of the shield cracked.
Just do what I say. I'll talk you through it. Just stay calm and don't think of anything except this working, okay?
Sarn nodded as a second blow punched through, shattering the shield. It fell in twinkling shards that winked out before hitting the ground.
They were leathery—the oncoming tentacles—not insubstantial blackness which had drained his magic, Sarn noted in the split second before Bear’s magic shot through him.
You're not failing them. You've never failed anyone, said that voice so like his own.
But it wasn't the voice narrating his thoughts. It came from a deeper place or perhaps, a higher self. And its assurance melted his reserve.
This time his magic didn't resist. Neither did Sarn. His body flickered as Bear worked through him.
When those tentacles fell, he wasn’t there. Neither were the hundred-people counting on him. Bear forced them all into insubstantiality a breath before the tentacles stabbed the island.
They probed the rocky ground in search of the prey they knew were there. Ice burrowed into Sarn, and he shivered as those tentacles swept back and forth through him. Only Bear’s spell kept their wicked points from stabbing home.
Was Ran safe? Sarn couldn't feel his son anymore. Was Ran still behind him? He was so cold. Bear's power was like ice water flowing through him.
“They’re tapping on your grave. Ghosts and ghouls and sallow fools, oh, how they cool, oh, how they cool, ‘neath the land where shadows rule—"
“Who said that?”
Who said what? I didn't hear anything over all that confounded screaming. Bear shot the screamers a glare, but they didn't see it.
Shadows massed on shore. Sarn stared at a blurry cross between a dragon and an octopus. It looked like the symbol for the Ægeldar, but the Ægeldar was a place, not a creature. Sarn tried to point at it, bu
t he was a link in a chain binding them all into immateriality, and his neighbors held tight to his hands. Besides, the apparition was dispersing and darkening the edges of his vision.
Come on Kid, you’re our only channel and you’re not a very good one either.
A slap made Sarn’s eyelids flutter. He hadn’t meant to close them. “We can’t stay here forever.”
Agreed. But you can’t defeat that thing, not in your current state.
“And you can’t render us incorporeal forever.”
No, I can’t, Bear conceded, and its body flickered as those tentacles shot toward them again. Cold magic crashed over Sarn. Convulsions racked him as Bear forced them all into incorporeity again.
Sarn pulled on the stone, needing its warmth to stop the shakes. But he was draining its store of earth magic, and there was nothing refilling it. He had nothing to contribute since his own reserves had been drained earlier. And that fates-damned white magic was coiled inside him again refusing to manifest.
Sarn let go of the stone. The people he was helping to save needed its calming light. He reached for the white magic instead. It ran warm like his missing green magic or it would if he could just grab hold of it. But it burrowed deeper, ignoring his summons. And he was too tired to fight with it.
A tentacle smashed into the lumir crystal breaking its top off. Shards showered the screaming children and adults caught in its spray. Several slivers stabbed the back of Sarn's neck.
That cold tingling sensation intensified as Bear redoubled his efforts, but they were flickering in and out of immateriality. Bear couldn't protect them for much longer.
“We have to get out of here.”
Sarn tried to open his eyes. There was only one entity who might be able to help them—the Queen of All Trees. If he called her, would she come?
Just thinking of her brought her call sign to mind. A circle shimmered against his closing lids. From its circumference, a line curved inward tracing one hundred and forty-three interlocking circles inside a greater circle. White flames licked upward describing the root ball of a massive, shining tree that didn't fit inside the cavern when the one hundred forty-fourth circle closed.
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 74