“Why would the draoidh do this?”
“Because of the perversions Ewain performed. Although the tales sound fanciful to rational minds, some writings suggest he raised the dead.”
“So Ewain was trapped in this Danastai kingdom?”
Oszlár furrowed his brow. “No. His fellow draoidh captured and disposed of him.” He tilted his head. “Our order of keepers was formed several hundred years after these events. We possess no direct evidence revealing what happened or why.”
“He might still be alive,” Aaron said, his mind reeling.
“After ten thousand years?” Oszlár said. “The draoidh were not immortal. In those days, the lifespan of even the fae was much shorter, a mere two hundred years or so. It has taken many hundreds of generations for us to achieve such longevity.”
“You said Ewain was accused of raising the dead,” Aaron said. “If he managed that, couldn’t he keep himself alive?”
“These are rumours. Ancient stories. Fictions unworthy of truth-seekers and scholars,” Oszlár said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“I heard his voice, and Munro’s, not half an hour ago.” Aaron wasn’t getting anywhere. Time to change tactics. “You said your order of keepers was created after these events. Surely there must be clues in your history.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. The Stone is our primary concern. Any scholars could tend to the library and our collection of writings and artefacts, but the Stone requires special care.”
Aaron leaned forward. “What kind of care?”
“The Stone is the oldest and most powerful artefact of our race. If the Stone were to be destroyed, we would perish.”
That’s not an answer. “Could Ewain have been trapped inside the Stone?”
“No,” Oszlár said, frowning as though contemplating. “The Stone is a rock. How could a man be held within it?”
“A rock with peculiar qualities. You must admit, it seems strangely life-like, almost sentient at times. The Stone calls people, makes decisions, listens to requests, asks to be fed with the power of druids.” His stomach tightened with worry. “Prince Griogair saw a hand reach out of the portal, a mere projection of the Stone. That hand took Munro.” He paused, staring hard at the keeper. “Ewain’s hand. Which suggests he’s still alive. If he’s alive, so is Munro.”
“Impossible,” Oszlár whispered, his hands trembling.
∞
Cen led Joy to the portal. Prince Griogair, two Caledonian Watchers, and Lisle followed, having left Jago in the nursery with the princess. Joy clutched the small rattle awkwardly. After all, it had been made for Maiya’s baby grip. If only she knew better how to use her spirit flows, maybe she could work out why the princess had given it to her. She’d had a teacher once, Pana, but he lost his fingers and Joy her eyes because of their clandestine lessons. Unable to feed or tend himself, Pana took poison rather than allow Joy to spend her life taking care of both of them. The loss still pained her.
Now this infant, Maiya, expected Joy to perform a miracle. What was she supposed to do? She approached the eerie glow of the portal. Her spirit senses showed her a perfect orb, shining bright like a blue sun. Circling the portal, she tried to connect with her spirit flows. How much easier the process would be if she could even whisper.
Remembering the moment she’d bonded with Aaron, when she formed the necessary words, told her what to do. Her damaged throat no longer allowed the warm vibrations of a voice, yet she’d successfully used it to enter a magical contract even though for azuri fae in Zalia, sound of any sort was forbidden. Even a click of the tongue was grounds for punishment. She paused to breathe and calm herself. She needed to put Zalian tradition behind her if she wanted to succeed.
The spirit aura she’d sensed in the portal still lingered. Neither Aaron nor Cen understood, but her spirit senses were foreign to any who’d never experienced them. Curiously, Aaron claimed no other spirit fae existed. She knew several in Tafgul. At least half the shadowlings she’d encountered shared her sphere. Why couldn’t one of them, one older and more practised, one not hindered by blindness, have bonded with Aaron instead? Why me? I don’t deserve this honour. I’m not sure I am up to this task.
Doing her best to push the fears aside, Joy reached for the portal. The fragment within definitely mirrored the weak essence she’d sensed in the Caledonian Hall, presumably the queen. When her druid fell, Eilidh’s spirit must have ripped. In fact, the part of the queen’s spirit Joy detected had been melded with another. Before she’d bonded with Aaron, Joy wouldn’t have understood. Now she recognised the pattern of entwined souls. Hers and Aaron’s had begun the same process. Likewise, Tràth and his druid bore identical spiritual marks. Their connection had suffered some devastating injury, but their auras were slowing healing the wound.
Tempted to give up and retreat to the Druid Hall, Joy faltered. What was she supposed to do? She’d never attempted anything like this, barely even understood what she saw. How could she capture the errant spirit and bind it to the queen? Finally, she could stall no more. She had to at least make an attempt. Mouthing words she scarcely allowed herself to think over the past century, clicks of the tongue and strange growls in her throat beckoned the spirit.
The thread floated toward her, pulsing with a weak and diminishing energy. If she didn’t succeed soon, it would depart forever. What held it in this portal anyway? She’d not believed a spirit could survive severed from the flesh.
A seed of darkness formed in the portal’s glow. She urgently called to the spirit-thread, trying to lead it away from the growing aberration. The shadow swelled quickly and suddenly surrounded Joy, pulling her into the portal. Shouts sounded around her. Earth magic whipped nearby, and she recognised Prince Griogair’s unique aura. The darkness became more solid, a distinct pattern of spirit flows, more terrible and powerful than anything she’d ever encountered. Fear wracked her body, and she opened her mouth in a silent scream. Flailing in its grasp, the shadow lifted her. She couldn’t tell how high, and she lost all sense of orientation as she fought and kicked.
The rattle vibrated in her hand, almost causing her to drop it, but Joy held on. Athair, a voice called in her head. Maiya. Was this the same force that killed the princess’ father? The knowledge made Joy’s chest tighten with panic. If it ended a powerful druid lord, what hope did an untrained, blind, mute, outcast faerie have?
Joy struck the shadow with her fists. When the blood artefact touched the dark spirit binding her, it wavered and the grip on her loosened. Hope sparked within, and Joy funnelled her spirit flows into the rattle and pounded again. A loud rumble sounded, and the force tossed her in the air like a toy.
A roar like a man’s primal scream filled her ears, but Joy fought on, wrangling the flows she’d hidden from for so long. Clumsy and inept, still she struggled, focusing her energy on the artefact. This time, instead of striking the darkness, she pulled the rattle in and struck herself hard in the seat of her own soul, just below her stomach. When her root spectrum connected with the artefact, the blackness released her, and she fell.
The dark force surrounded but didn’t touch her. Her spirit vision grew dim. She could no longer detect the glowing souls of the people nearby. The barrier silenced the voices of her companions. Only the sound of her own breathing touched her ears. If not for the still-glowing spirit thread trapped with her, she might have believed her magical senses had been damaged.
Reaching out, her fingers found a cold surface which formed a sphere. She was trapped inside the portal.
Eilidh’s spirit-thread flickered, growing weaker. The fragment would not survive much longer. Joy, frightened and unsure, clicked her tongue, calling voicelessly to the broken soul. It approached and she opened her mouth and swallowed, cradling and protecting the wounded fragment within her body. She coaxed it downward until the light rested next to her own soul, allowing it to feed from her essence while she figured out what to do next.
She sat in the curved
bottom of the sphere and tried to slow her breathing. The small amount of air remaining would not last long.
Chapter 22
Something wrenched in Aaron’s gut: pain, fear, dread. “Joy,” he said, rising out of his seat.
“What is it?” Keeper Oszlár asked.
“My bonded faerie is in trouble.” He bolted from the small study without another word. She was close by, almost directly above his head. The portal. “Oh, shit,” he said, bounding up the stairs.
When he arrived in the courtyard, his eyes immediately went to the portal, which had turned dark and solid. “Joy!” he shouted. He sensed her within the immense black orb.
“Stay back!” Griogair warned. “The hand took her.”
“She’s inside,” Aaron said. “We need to break her out.” His mind spun, searching for some solution. She was alive. Afraid, but not panicked. He should have been there. Why did he not stay with her? He turned to Cen, needing his help. With Huck and Demi still in America, Douglas in Zalia, and Munro dead, that only left one druid other than Lisle, and what could a blood druid do? Then again, what could any of them do? “Go to the Druid Hall. Get Rory. Quickly!”
Pale and shaken, Cen nodded. He ran down the narrow bridge, moving so fast, his form blurred.
“What happened?” Aaron asked Griogair.
“As with Munro,” Griogair said. “I tried to pull her back with air flows. She fought the creature with Maiya’s toy, the rattle Jago made. It’s some kind of artefact.”
Aaron frowned. He’d helped the boy craft the object. Although the water druids had shaped the wood with the flows, they hadn’t imbued it with druid magic. The child must have done something on his own. Whatever he did, it likely saved Joy from sharing Munro’s fate.
Hearing footfalls approaching from the library, Aaron turned to see Keeper Oszlár behind him. “Joy is in there,” Aaron said, pointing to the portal. “What do you know of this?” Aaron strode toward the ancient faerie.
Oszlár’s eyes widened. “Nothing,” he said. “This is not the work of the keepers.”
“We both know who did this,” Aaron said darkly. “The question is how do we get her out?”
“I have no idea.” Oszlár sounded sincere, but Aaron had little patience with the keepers or trust in their motives at the moment.
Worry and frustration clouded Aaron’s thoughts. He left Oszlár and approached the orb’s shell. “Joy?” he shouted. He banged on the side with his palm. “Joy?” He put his ear to the stone.
“My lord druid,” Griogair said. When Aaron did not reply, the prince called, “Aaron! It’s not safe to stand so close. What if the spirit returns? It may take you both.”
Aaron ignored him. He took a stylus out of his pocket and began to trace the rune for open onto the rock. Stone wasn’t easy for him to manipulate at the best of times, but the stylus surprised him and sunk into the hard surface and the lines appeared. The orb shuddered, and the ruts he’d carved filled up as though the shell was made of liquid. “She won’t be able to breathe in there long,” he said. “We must get her out.”
Within moments, Rory arrived at a run, followed by Flùranach and several Mistwatchers. Griogair quickly explained the situation.
Rory asked the prince, “What can I do?”
Griogair shook his head, looking helpless.
Aaron turned to Rory and Lisle. “Munro was taken. He’s being held in some kind of prison, built to hold one of the original draoidh. Whoever kidnapped him tried to take Joy. She’s trapped inside.”
“But Queen Eilidh believes Munro is dead,” Flùranach argued.
He didn’t have the time or patience to explain everything. “He called to me today.”
Lisle spoke to the keepers. “The Stone is responsible?”
Oszlár frowned. “The Stone is an object, not a sentient creature with a voice. It has clearly been manipulated.”
“I don’t care who did this or why, only how to get them both back,” Aaron said. He put his hand on the orb, refusing to let himself wonder how long Joy might have before she suffocated. She had survived so much. “I’m going to the Stone,” he said.
Suddenly, the orb wavered. An arc of cobalt light warped around the dais. Without warning, Tràth and Douglas materialised, walking out of the solid stone hand in hand. Douglas appeared shaken. He stumbled to the ground, shivering as though he’d been fished out of ice water. “Bloody hell,” he said.
Tràth knelt beside him. “Breathe.” He looked up at Aaron. “We turned around the moment he realised…something about the rune you wrote.”
Douglas let Tràth help him to his feet. “Remember what I said? How you wrote the rune wrong? I don’t think you did. Jailers. Keepers. Think about it.”
Aaron’s mind raced as he tried to grasp what Douglas was saying. It fit with the rather cryptic hints Oszlár had thrown out about Ewain being disposed of by the other draoidh. He was still alive, and at least some of the keepers must have known. Had Oszlár lied? As angry and confused as he felt, he shook the thought free and tried to focus on the present. He gestured at the orb. “How the hell did you move through there?” he asked.
“We time-walked,” Tràth said. “I’ve recently gained a little more control over the flows. When we arrived at the dais, the portal was solid and black, so I bent time to travel to the moment before it changed.”
Aaron had a million questions, but they’d wait. “Joy is trapped inside. Can you do the same thing to get her out?”
Tràth furrowed his brow and approached the orb. “I’ll try.” He stood perfectly still for an instant until, with a dizzying distortion of light, he vanished. Ghostly images of him popped around the orb in varying locations, seemingly all at once, the light strobing in a whirl of intermittent illumination.
All the images coalesced into one. He looked out of breath. “I saw her. She’s alive, but someone is definitely holding her. He fought me the moment I attempted to reach her.”
The news crushed Aaron’s hopes. “Her captor wanted me to feed power into the Stone.” He turned to the other druids. “The only way I can think to fight him is to drain the Stone.”
“No!” Oszlár shouted. “The Stone keeps our people alive. Damaging it may kill us all.”
Aaron spun to him. “You said you protect the Stone because if it is destroyed, your people will die. What if jailing Ewain, keeping him, is what those words mean? That his release would cause the deaths, not the destruction of the Stone.”
Oszlár paused, but shook his head. “You saw what happened to the Ashkyne kingdom when it was cut off from the Source Stone a year ago. If the Stone is destroyed, this fate may take us all. Think! The Source Stone is the oldest artefact in our histories, predating Ewain’s removal by a long stretch.”
Rory interrupted. “We aren’t talking about destroying anything. We could drain the power Douglas and Lisle fed in over the past year. That might weaken whoever is doing this enough to break Joy free.”
“I cannot allow you to harm the Stone,” Oszlár said. He signalled to the other keepers, and they tapped into their flows, using air to erect a shield over the library entrance. “I’m sorry, my lord druid, but you are not behaving rationally.”
Aaron’s resolve wavered. He felt foolish for what he’d been thinking and became calmer, almost sedate. His worry for Joy faded slowly.
Leocort shouted, “Mistwatchers! Be on the alert!” Aaron turned and watched as Leocort and the others with him surrounded Flùranach. She cried out in anguish and frustration. In an instant, clarity returned to Aaron’s mind.
“No!” she shouted. “You must listen to the keepers!”
Rory looked stricken, and his expression thundered with anger. “You used your power to manipulate Aaron’s mind? You are sworn to the Druid Hall!”
“You must do as Keeper Oszlár says,” she protested. “He is older and wiser than all of you.”
Aaron didn’t want to hear it. “Deal with her elsewhere,” he told Rory. Aaron felt sappe
d of his strength, but he knew this, at least, wasn’t Flùranach’s fault. With her powers bound by the Mistwatchers, she would not be able to cast illusions or influence his mind.
Rory grabbed Flùranach by the arm, but she didn’t resist. “I hold your will,” he said. “Submit to me.” The command had an odd effect on her, and her face went slack. Rory must have been using the power of her bonding oath against her. Because he had not said the ritual words, she had no defence against his domination. Aaron wasn’t comfortable with it, but now wasn’t the time to worry about the foolish girl and her divided loyalties.
Rory led Flùranach to the Druid Hall, followed by the Mistwatchers that bound her power. Aaron had always suspected she’d be trouble, but he pitied Rory. They’d all been through so much. Would the trials never end?
Tràth stepped close to Aaron. “Do you really believe you can drain the Stone without breaking it?” His voice fell dead, as though he’d used air flows to keep his words from being overheard.
Aaron nodded. “I do.”
“I can time-walk you into the library,” he said.
“I’m worried that he’ll fight us if he knows what we’re doing,” Aaron said, hoping Ewain couldn’t hear through the air shield. The ground shook, and Aaron staggered a few steps. “What’s happening?” he said, looking to the keepers.
“It’s Joy,” Griogair shouted, pointing at the orb. “The same thing happened when she was using the rattle artefact. She’s trying to break out.”
With a thunderous crack, a fissure appeared on the orb, and the ground beneath their feet shuddered. The people around the courtyard struggled to remain standing as the earth heaved. Aaron tried not to think of the miles of formless mist below them.
Caledonia Fae 05 - Elder Druid Page 25