“Thank you for your service,” Garn said. Stuffing the covered crystal in the front pocket of his slacks, he strode to the door, waiting for his guide. If she found even a hint of his daughters, he would tip her well.
Corteezsha gestured at the tray on the table. “I could take what you’ve got left. You’re too weak to do anything about it.”
Jard stared at her in silence, his tired face unreadable.
“Yet, you know I will not. You’ve done a great service, Master Jard. Your skill has grown.” Corteezsha crossed the room to stand beside Garn.
He pulled the door open.
“Outlander, Garn?” Jard called his voice barely audible.
“Yes?”
“I kind of like you, so I put a bit extra into this infusion. May it help you with your search.”
Garn nodded.
Pushing through the second door, Garn found they were halfway down a narrow street. The dimming sunlight fought the first skirmishes against the invading shadows of evening.
Corteezsha smiled. “I know where we are. Come, this street isn’t far from my contacts’ meeting place.” Breaking into a fast stride, she splashed through mud and water alike, oblivious to the brown stains accumulating on her blue dress.
Glad to be back into the search for his girls, Garn hurried after his beautiful guide. With the crystal shard, he had something to show by comparison to the sapphire obelisks, though he was uncertain how much it would help. It was looking like the two different crystals had two vastly different functions.
FLOW THREADS
Fear rooted Jade in place. Something dark and monstrous was coming. She heard the scraping of its scaly, elongated body against the cave walls and the roof, grinding stalactites and stalagmites alike into mineral dust. Inexorably, the monstrosity slithered her way. The cave shook and groaned in protest, as oily black dust sprinkled down. The mountain boomed and lurched sideways. Dust avalanched. Sucking in a breath, her nose clogged. Rubbing desperately at her nasal passages she fought for air, her fear mounting as primitive emotions assaulted her in torrents; a hunger for soft, organic meat came first. Assimilate. Rend flesh, succulent bones to crack open and slurp the marrow inside. Assimilate. There would be sweet, oily gray matter to digest, to absorb, as its own. Assimilate. Become one being. Anticipation strong, the end was near. There was no way out, no chance to run. It had locked onto her scent. It was coming.
A voice intruded into her hearing, a harsh voice she struggled to recognize.
The cave dissipated, though blackness reigned.
“Put her down, you bloody mop handle! Thank Onan she’s coming around. Gently, blast you! If you add to her wounds, I shall burn you where you stand!”
White-hot pain flared inside her skull. She winced, wanting to cry out, but her throat was too raw; a lump clogged her airway. The pain in her head surged stronger, forcing a whimper to escape through her aching throat, loosening the clog enough that she was able to swallow. At least now, she could breathe. The pain in her skull receded enough to let her flick her eyelids open. Dispassionate yellow-orange eyes regarded her from inches away. She blinked. The strange eyes withdrew, replaced by two ice-blue ones set in a hard, weather-beaten face, looking concerned but also resolute. “I shall ask you a question of some significance. You have mere moments to respond,” the face said. Taking a deep breath, he spoke quickly. “What is my name?”
What was he jabbering on about, why would she know his name?
His blue eyes bled into gray and hardened. A frown creased the weathered face.
She glanced below the hard facade of his face, looking at the strange supple leather she’d seen him wearing in his image when she first met him. One hand held a torch; the other wrapped around the hilt of a familiar, long knife, beginning to rise.
Memories flooded in. The sapphire gate, how she’d arrived here. What else could she call it? The obelisks had been a gate to another world, hadn’t they? They had stranded her on a world prone to decisive violence with a silver-haired man who’d saved her on occasion.
“Camoe wait!”
The knife halted, but stayed suspended above her chest. “State my full name!”
“Camoe…Camoe Shadoe, why? I don’t understand.” Relief flashed across his weathered face so fast, Jade wasn’t certain it had ever been there. The long knife vanished into the sheath on his side. Face stoic as usual, he moved the torch close, peering down at her with his intense, now blue eyes. “Are you injured physically or mentally, in any way?” His voice was neutral, but his eyes gauged her like a starving bird of prey waiting for a rodent to break cover.
“What do you mean?”
He gazed at her, unblinking. “Those dark creatures delve deep into the mind. All memories and thought processes erased. Domination is total and permanent. No cure has ever been found, at least, nothing the Green Writhe has ever heard about.”
Jade gaped at her druid friend, Essence druid, to be precise. Her memory was still leaking tidbits into her mind, but one sentence from his quiet statement caught her attention. There was no cure, none at all. “I don’t understand. If there’s no cure, will I die soon?” Something sharp bit into her back and she squirmed away from it, realizing she was resting on the rocky cave floor near a boulder-strewn dead end. She must’ve been out of it for a while. How far had they come through the sewers?
Camoe shook his head. “It does not work that way. There is no disease, viral or otherwise, associated with the attack. It is a malevolent dark creature, as ancient as it is rare. The vile thing uses a single magical ability, albeit an extremely powerful one. We call it a dominion wraith. Dropping a paralyzing blanket of evil on its intended victim, the creature feeds on neural processes as far as we can tell. The host’s mind and willpower subvert to its evil. Three of our strongest held out a quarter of a bell before succumbing. Two of those three were honored with terra’ a morn and their blood returned to Onan. The third is somewhat alive, yet lost.”
Cold filled Jade. “What happened to the two? I don’t understand your phrasing for it.”
“Terra’ a morn is a complex rite of passage to the afterlife we druids hold for the honorable. First, you must know Onan formed Astura from the blood of a son, freely given. In return for oxygen and sustenance, we sprinkle the blood of our fallen upon the feet of flora. It’s the highest honor among our people.”
“Supplying oxygen? So, you mean plants?”
Camoe offered his weathered hand. “Yes, but flora is way beyond that. We’ll talk later on the subject. Can you stand?”
Jade accepted the offer and pulled herself to her feet. Disoriented, she staggered backwards. Camoe stepped close, his grip shifting to her elbow. Grateful to find his broad shoulder near, she hung on until the feeling passed.
“Are you well enough to keep moving, young seer? We should be going.”
“Why did you call me that?”
“There are so many aspects to you than you know. We shall discuss it when there’s less pressing matters gaining on us; we need to flee our pursuit.”
“What’s pursuing us? How long has it been?”
“Six bells, surely, you considered that stealing a Dark User’s creature and then killing those guards would bring the Dark Citadel after us in force? I am uncertain if it is the soldiers or the Dark Users, perhaps both.”
Wow, six hours, Jade thought. She found it hard to believe. “I never thought about pursuit.”
“That is now apparent. Come, we have wasted too much time as it is. Can you walk?” There was a sense of urgency, mixed with exhaustion flowing from her guide. Camoe must be too weary or too worried to keep it from leaking out. He looked over his shoulder with greater frequency, and his booted feet scraped on rocks often whenever he shifted his stance.
She’d have to find the strength from somewhere to keep going. She would stay on her own two feet: she wasn’t about to be the one to get them caught. “Yes, I can walk, as long as you keep it slow to begin with.”
Camoe moved away, his shadow grossly elongated from the torch’s meager light. Jade followed, her stomach getting nauseous with each step taken. Light-headed and weak, she stumbled along. Soon, she worried she was going to lose consciousness again. The last thing her friends needed was a girl-sized log to carry. Just keep moving.
After an interminable time, nausea loosened its clamp on her stomach, her head cleared a little, though she still fought weakness. She breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the One. She may yet live, after all.
Glancing over her shoulder, Burl’s glowing yellow-orange eyes trailed them like a supernatural being following behind in the darkness. Had they always been so bright? She couldn’t recall. The name she’d chosen for him fit—she was happy with it—though what he thought about it, she’d never know. It was too bad the Dark User who created him hadn’t bothered to give him a voice, but it wasn’t surprising. An arrogant master wouldn’t want a servant voicing complaints.
Thinking about her first meeting with Camoe, and then Burl, brought back memories of how she’d arrived. One instant she was touching the dark curtain in Ruena Day’s office, the next she was in a room full of armor, she’d stumbled upon the druid in the hall after.
Camoe had saved her life when they ran and when he’d forced her to crawl through the smoke ventilation to find Burl at work in the kitchens. Without her druidic guide, she would’ve been soul food for the horrible flickers. Now he admitted to being part of a druidic order known as the Green Writhe. Who was he, really? Thinking back, she noticed that Camoe never spoke much about himself. Most of what she knew she got from reading his aura, but there was no reason not to trust him. He’d gotten her this far.
Camoe halted at an intersection. She made out the dark faces of four foreboding tunnels leading away as she moved beside him.
“This is where we discovered the side shaft. I am uncertain of the way out from here since we had to run from the dominion wraith and our pursuit. Your friend may know. We shall have to follow him.”
“I thought you didn’t trust Burl.”
“I do not, but I shall not let you die in this Onan-forsaken hole underground. When the wraith attacked, I was struck by the strongest foreboding.” He paused. “I keep forgetting you are unfamiliar with our ways, I suppose I should offer a brief explanation. Some claim I am blessed. I attract Flow threads riddled with possible futures. Most would say I am cursed. The threads are just that, only a thread…a primitive sense of what may happen, a foreboding, or foretelling, if you will. Most do not believe in it. How you decide for yourself is of little consequence. What matters is that I never ignore a foreboding. When the thread struck, I believed it was too strong for me, but I had accepted it. It was then a vision of a desolate Astura hit me, except where you traveled. Where you went, the flora thrived. My mind began to slip beyond my control, which can happen, has happened, in the past. I fought back. It was a near thing, but I regained it. I live. As do you. I now believe you are to have a large part to play in Astura’s future. What that role shall be, I cannot say.”
Jade frowned. “I don’t understand. Tell me something else about this…this…foreboding. You mentioned it happens from Flow threads, but you didn’t say what you mean by Flow.”
“Blast me! I have failed to tell you about the Flow? Why have I not? Perhaps it is because you remind me so much of…never mind. That is in the past,” Camoe said, his voice cracking, “for now, you need to know how the Flow works here, at least for most of us. I am uncertain how yours works, though I do have some ideas about it. Well, we have to start with it, or you will not understand a lot of what I am about to tell you. The Flow derives from—”
A burlap bag stepped between them. Jade felt a pang of guilt. Burl’s muteness had almost made her forget they traveled with someone else. Tugging on her tee, he gestured farther along the tunnel. Moving toward them in the distance, dozens of dim specks of light hovered in the darkness, held by unseen hands.
“Blast it!” Camoe swore. “How did they get ahead of us? No matter now, they are coming from the only way I know to escape this rock. There is no hope but to battle our way through. I hope your friend will fight, Jade. There is too many to take alone. What is it doing?”
Burl had removed the soiled rope he carried around his waist. He slipped it through Camoe’s sword belt and around her waist. Coiling the center of the rope around one tree-bark wrist, the raggedy man reached out and smothered the torch. A soft hiss preluded a plunge into total darkness.
The darkness vividly reminded Jade of a cave outing with her family many seasons ago. The Admin guide had switched off her light to demonstrate the complete absence of light deep underground. She’d appreciated the woman’s action back then—though it had only been for a few moments—as much as she liked what Burl had done now, she hated it. Only now, Jade knew it would be longer. As back then, a scream built in the back of her mind.
A sharp tug sidelined her tension. She had to walk. Or be dragged.
Camoe’s whispered voice spoke from close by. “Blessed Onan, your stick man must be able to see in the dark! No wonder it stayed back from the torch! I thought it afraid. I am a fool for not noticing sooner. Pray it knows another way out, or we are doomed to wander in here for an eternity.”
She’d been relieved to hear Burl could see in the dark, but the rest of Camoe’s words brought panic to the forefront again. Jade walked blindly into the nothingness ahead. However long an eternity would turn out to be, it was already far too long for her liking.
OLD HEART
Having slipped out of the side street, Garn’s guide deftly maneuvered through a dense crowd of townsfolk heading the opposite direction. Dropping farther behind, he struggled to keep her in sight. Though blue dresses abounded within the crowd, Corteezsha seemed to be the only one with a blue hat with a widened brim. He was thankful for that, particularly when she crossed the main thoroughfare.
The roadway was crowded with riders on horseback threading their way past horse-drawn carriages, and townsfolk pulling handcarts loaded with bulk goods. Corteezsha weaved between them deftly, at last darting into the maw of a dark alley.
Garn halted at the street’s center, his wind gone. Gasping for breath, he waited for a troop of pike men in burnished plate armor to file past while keeping the alley his guide had vanished into firmly in his sight. What was wrong with her? At this rate, she’d lose him before long.
The hard eyes of the pike men fixed on him to a man, as they marched past within arm’s reach. A soldier wearing a plumed headpiece marched in time beside his troops at the center row. “Make way, outlander!” the plumed soldier snarled, closing the gap between them. Garn fell backward, narrowly avoiding being bowled over. Glaring with open animosity, the officer stomped past without a single glance back. Giving them a wide berth, Garn waited until the last one moved past.
The shadowed alley began at a decent width, but soon narrowed to less than four men abreast. Corteezsha was nowhere in sight. There was only one path forward, so she must have ventured deeper inside. Striding behind dismal stone and wooden buildings, Garn rounded some storage barrels and stacked crates cluttering the path on both sides, feeling uneasy about the whole situation. He knew well how dangerous an alley could be in this place after witnessing two deaths in alleyways, so far, in Gray Water. He didn’t know what Corteezsha was up to coming in here, but he hoped she wasn’t putting herself in danger.
Garn slowed, glancing over his shoulder. Shadowy figures slipped into the alley along each side. Damn! What a fool he was! He should’ve seen the situation for what it was, before he’d sprung the trap. The trap Corteezsha had deftly maneuvered him toward the moment she walked by.
On higher alert now, Garn continued moving the only way open to him, the swiftly darkening alley. If only he could see well enough to find a weapon of some sort to make a fitting end for himself. And it was all for what? Not the coin he carried. The traitorous woman hadn’t given it back. What could she possibly want then, to
murder him for protection from revenge? Perhaps, there certainly seemed enough knives behind him to do the foul deed. Yet, it felt like he was missing something crucial. There had to be something else she wanted from him. Something with enough worth she’d be willing to go through the messiness of dispatching him when she could’ve just vanished with his coin. He was an outlander, no one would believe his accusation if he ever caught up to her afterward.
Then he had it.
Corteezsha wanted the glimmer shard. Slipping his hand in his front pocket, Garn glanced over his shoulder, surreptitiously this time. The shadowy figures kept the same distance behind him, obstructing the way back with a wall of bodies, destroying any thoughts of escape. Not that he had harbored any.
The rectangular shard felt noticeably warmer, though it was still wrapped in the soft leather, as if it anticipated what he was about to do. First, he needed a weapon. Removing the wrap from a tiny spot in the crystal’s center, Garn let a pinpoint of light escape. His focused light beam shot forth from his palm, illuminating an area the size of his hand.
He searched quickly; if his attackers spotted his makeshift light, it may force them to act sooner than they—or he—would like. He shielded the light the best he could with his bulk. Sweeping the beam back and forth along the debris on both sides revealed a thick wooden board, which he picked up. It would have to do.
The light winked out when he covered the crystal. Letting his eyes adjust to the growing dark, he assessed the situation. Two shadowy rows—one behind the other—each three men wide, made an effective human barricade against fleeing to the relative safety of the street, as he’d thought. Well, they’d not find him as easy a mark as most. Defending against a thrown dagger or crossbow would be tricky, though. He’d have to watch for that.
The human wall made no move toward him. They stood in silence, staring at him with unseen eyes. He didn’t know what the delay was, but he was relieved for the moment. He would prefer to find room to swing his makeshift weapon.
Beyond the Sapphire Gate: Epic Fantasy-Some Magic Should Remain Untouched (The Flow of Power Book 1) Page 19