“There’s an opening in the rocks!” Kelan yelled. “Aim for that. It must be the entrance.”
They slowly powered to a narrow fissure in the rock. Towering cliffs loomed overhead in the dusky light, their crumbling rockfaces plunging deep into turbulent water. The fissure was a black gash in gray sandstone, and water frothed at its entrance. There was a narrow ledge of flat rock at the edge of the fissure, and they headed straight for it.
They were so close, only a few boat lengths from the ledge, when a pulse of pressure passed through Gwen. By the startled expression on the others’ faces, they had felt it too.
“What was that?” Gwen forced the words out of her tight jaw and chattering teeth. Kelan’s face cleared with understanding.
“It’s the magic-dampening spell on the Forbidden Lands. We just passed through the boundary.”
“Why aren’t we moving?” Aidan said.
“Magic-dampening spell,” Bran said, his face tight and pale with cold. “That means magic doesn’t work as well.”
“Thanks for the obvious. Come on, let’s kick!”
Gwen kicked her leaden legs as fast as she could, which wasn’t very fast. But slowly, slowly, they approached the ledge.
“Ahh!” yelled Bran. “There are sharp rocks under here!”
The boat shuddered from impact. Gwen leaned out to have a look, and her hands slipped off the hull.
Panic instantly threatened as she slid under the water. Her legs were almost useless, they were so cold and leaden. She flailed her limbs and managed to coax her head above the waterline. The boat was too far away, the others’ shouts muted in her water-filled ears. The ledge was closer, so she forced her legs into a tired shuffle. She gritted her teeth and thrashed her arms in her best impression of a breast-stroke, and slowly she moved toward the ledge. Waves washed over her head, and she gasped for breath in between crests. Finally, the ledge was in reach. She bashed against the edge a few times until strong hands pulled at her shoulders. With her last strength, she hauled herself out of the water.
She desperately wanted to lie down and sleep, but a small part of her frozen brain told her that it was a bad idea. She couldn’t muster the energy to do anything but stay on her hands and knees with her head hanging between her shoulders until a hand pressed gently on her back.
“Come on, Gwen,” said Aidan. “We need to get dry.”
With gargantuan effort, Gwen hauled herself up using Aidan’s outstretched hand. She looked around. The narrow ledge was wet from spray, and Kelan and Bran dragged the boat onto a precarious perch.
“We have to get dry,” she said hoarsely. “And there’s no shelter. We’re going to die if we don’t get dry.”
“A drying spell,” whispered Bran. He coughed and tried to speak louder. “That’s what we need.”
“But the magic-dampening spell,” Kelan said. His whole body shuddered with shivers. “The spell won’t be strong enough.”
“So, we connect and join our magic together,” said Gwen.
“C-c-connecting isn’t something you do lightly,” said Kelan.
“I would connect with Corann himself if it meant getting warm,” said Aidan shortly. He tried a grin. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
Kelan rolled his eyes then gripped Aidan’s and Bran’s hands. Gwen took their other hands.
“I’ll do the spell,” Kelan said. “You send power my way, all right?”
“How?” said Gwen.
“Remember the marking ceremony,” said Bran. “In the willow tree, when the power passed through us all? Like that.”
Gwen nodded and closed her eyes. She tried not to shake loose from the others’ hands, although her body shuddered hard enough to make it difficult. A light tingling in her palms reminded her of her job, and she dug into her core and sent her power shooting through her arms.
Her back arched when she felt magic coursing through her, far more than she was used to handling. Aidan’s familiar magic was there, as comfortable and thrilling as it always was, but beside it were the stronger magics of Bran and Kelan, felt even through the dampening of the Forbidden Lands’ spell.
And then she forgot the strangeness of the connection with the glorious warmth that flowed over her body. Her clothes lightened as the weight of water left them, and steam clouded in front of her face. Her fingers and feet regained feeling, and there was a mixture of relief and intense pain as chilblains sizzled in her skin.
Her core flickered, then her magic pulled out of her arms. The connection broke abruptly, and Gwen gasped at the suddenness. A deep weariness filled her from the cold, exertion, adrenaline, and now the warmth. With every cell in her body, Gwen wanted to cuddle under a blanket on a comfortable couch with Aidan and a mug of hot chocolate. She looked at the others, who blinked in the aftermath of the spell. Sleet still pelted down on them from the dark sky, so she pulled her hood on tightly.
“It worked,” Aidan said finally. “But I could sleep for a week now.”
“I think we went to the limit of your powers,” said Kelan. “I forgot you have less.”
“My poor half-human friends,” Bran said with a fond smile. Aidan aimed a kick at him, which Bran dodged with a grin.
“Now what?” Gwen said. She looked at Kelan, and he cast his gaze into the fissure. Her eyes followed as if drawn. The sloshing water and moss-covered walls looked dank and dangerous.
“We must travel through the caves,” said Kelan. “It’s the only way in that I’ve heard of.”
“That’s what Loniel said, too,” said Aidan. He sighed in resignation. “Back in the boat.”
Bran and Aidan held the boat steady in the choppy water while Gwen clambered in and took out the oars, which had been strapped down against the sides when the boat flipped. Kelan followed and took the oars. When Bran and Aidan jumped in, he pushed against the ledge and rowed toward the fissure.
It wasn’t long before the current caught them. It pulled the little boat swiftly into the roiling water and Gwen held on to the ropes tightly. Their vessel shot forward between the narrowing cliffs. Kelan grunted with effort.
“Watch out for the wall,” Bran said.
Kelan merely glared at his brother in reply. They flew past dripping walls of gray stone. It was so dim at the bottom of the crevasse that not even moss clung to the sides. Gwen looked up. Far above them was a narrow strip of stormy gray sky. It grew smaller and smaller. Gwen blinked against sudden vertigo and looked forward again.
“We’re almost in the caves,” said Kelan. “Gwen, do you have those human lights your father found? Magic flames won’t work here.”
“Oh, yes.” Gwen opened her backpack. Everything was soaking inside from their dip in the lake, and Gwen inwardly thanked her father for buying waterproof flashlights. She flicked them on and passed one to Aidan. He shone it forward just as the cliffs above closed to form a rapidly descending roof.
“Here we go,” said Bran, with a trace of apprehension in his voice.
The light behind them grew fainter and fainter as the ceiling closed in on them. Gwen found herself huddled into the boat, as if for protection. The sides of the tunnel were worn smooth from the endless passage of water through its course. The flashlights cast a feeble pool of light forward, no more than a boat-length over the near-silent waters. Beyond was a dark question. Gwen wanted to say something, to break the terrible silence of the caves, but her throat was too dry to speak.
Kelan pulled the oars into the boat when the tunnel grew too narrow. He kept one at the ready for steering at the stern. With the narrowing of the waterway, the current pulled them even faster. Gwen’s knuckles whitened on her rope.
“Do you hear that?” Aidan whispered hoarsely.
Gwen strained her ears. The quiet swishing of water against stone walls was drowned out by a new sound, that of turbulent water ahead.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” Gwen said. “Rapids. Hold on. Where’s that other paddle?”
Bran wordlessly exchanged the padd
le for Gwen’s flashlight and she took a stance in the bow.
“What are you doing?” Aidan asked.
“I went on a white-water rafting trip once. I think I remember what to do.” Gwen didn’t mention that it had been years ago, and the adult guides had done most of the paddling. She tightened her fingers and held her paddle at the ready.
The boat traveled faster and faster through the tunnel, and the sound of the rapids swelled to a roar that echoed in the dank cave. The tunnel twisted one way, then back again. White flashed under the beam of the lights.
Gwen shrieked once when the boat dropped, then she clamped her lips shut and dug her paddle in. Another drop, and the whole boat veered to the right. She paddled frantically to steer. The others shouted incoherently behind her as they dropped again. The inflatable boat shuddered but didn’t puncture on the rocks scraping its hull.
Then, the light’s beam illuminated calmer waters. Gwen took one deep breath in relief, but one was all she had time for. A fork in the waterway loomed ahead.
“Left, or right?” Aidan shouted to Kelan.
“I don’t know!” Kelan yelled. Gwen looked between their choices. Both tunnels were equally dark and uninviting.
“Left!” she shouted. Someone had to decide before they slammed into the rock. She and Kelan dug their paddles deep into the swirling water and missed the divide by a handspan.
“It’s a dead end,” yelled Bran. “Turn around, turn around!”
The ceiling dipped down to a height much shorter than their boat. Water churned and frothed as it was sucked into the fissure.
“Turn to the right,” said Kelan. He and Gwen managed to rotate the boat, but the current was stronger than they could fight against.
“Will it suck us under?” Gwen asked. She pulled the paddle with all her might, but they made no gains.
Aidan shone his flashlight over the wall of the cave.
“There are rocks here we can use as handholds. Bran, come and drag the boat with me. Gwen, get on Kelan’s side and keep paddling.”
Gwen flipped her paddle over as quickly as she could, but in the few brief seconds the boat slid further toward the fissure.
A hissing grew over the sound of the rapids. Gwen looked around while she paddled.
“What’s that?”
Kelan threw a glance backward and his eyes widened in horror.
“I saw a forked tongue flicker out of the fissure. It was huge!”
Aidan and Gwen glanced at each other in disbelief and fear.
“Those venomous snakes Loniel warned us about?” Aidan asked.
“There are beithirs in here?” Kelan yelled in panic. “Paddle faster! They’re too big to get out, but we can’t get sucked in there!”
Gwen dug the paddle in again, sweating. Aidan clung to jagged rocks that poked through the softer sandstone of the tunnel. He pulled, his face contorted with the strain. Bran joined him, and the boat inched forward.
“Keep going,” Aidan forced out. He found another rock and pulled harder, his feet braced against the bench.
Little by little, the boat rounded a corner. The divide was just ahead. Gwen thought her arms were about to fall off, but she didn’t stop paddling until the current of the other tunnel swept them in its path. Then she collapsed onto the bench.
“I need to work out more,” Aidan panted behind her. Gwen let out a breathy laugh. He shone the flashlight past the bow. “Rapids and snakes. What’s next?”
“Oh no,” said Bran. “I hear more rapids.”
Gwen wanted to cry, but instead she braced herself in the bow and held her paddle at the ready. The roaring increased and so did their speed. The flashlight had barely caught the white froth of rapids before they were tossed down a stomach-flopping drop. Gwen’s teeth clattered together on impact, and their little boat shuddered.
A rock loomed up in front of them, and Gwen and Kelan barely avoided bashing headlong into it.
“Was that another tunnel?” Aidan yelled.
“Just a rock,” Gwen called out.
They swished around the rock, dropped again, and paddled until Gwen’s arms threatened to fall out of their sockets. She was drenched from sweat and spray and her heart pounded in her chest as if trying to escape. They flew around a corner. Aidan’s light reflected off a rock wall in front of them, and a deafening roar filled the tunnel.
“Waterfall!” Gwen screamed. “Hold on!”
She took her own advice and held onto the ropes with all her might, the paddle tucked under her clenched fists. The rock wall shot toward them, and then they angled down into darkness.
Gwen screamed, long and loud, but could barely hear herself over the thundering. Her stomach climbed up her throat as they fell. Water spray was everywhere, and Gwen wouldn’t have been able to see even if they weren’t plunging into absolute darkness.
It was only moments until they landed with a tremendous splash, although it felt like hours to Gwen. The thud of impact whipped her head forward on her neck and she gasped with pain. Miraculously, their little boat was still upright.
“Is everyone all right?” Kelan’s shaky voice called out above the roar of the waterfall behind them.
“Peachy,” said Aidan.
“Alive,” said Gwen.
Bran pointed his flashlight at the waterfall behind them. The beam barely caught the bottom of the falls before the boat was whisked around another corner. The unseen top was swathed in darkness.
“Best not to know,” said Aidan.
“Wait,” said Gwen. She squinted and leaned out past the bow to see better. “Is there light up ahead?”
“About bloody time. I’m never going down a waterslide again,” said Aidan.
The light grew steadily brighter, until they could see through the clear water to the bottom of the tunnel. They turned a corner and surged through an opening in the rock. Gwen blinked her streaming eyes in the clouded dusky evening, brighter to her than the sunniest summer’s noon.
When her eyes adjusted, she opened her mouth in wonder. Before them lay a snowy valley of rolling meadows and groves of leafless trees. Forbidding, jagged peaks of severe gray stone surrounded them like a crown. They were at once oppressive and snug, as if their boat were cuddled in the arms of a giantess. No houses perched on the riverside, nor in the valley beyond.
The river widened slightly as it grew shallow enough for their boat to brush against the silty bottom. Gwen glanced at Aidan, who looked as bedraggled as she felt. He shuffled over to sit beside her on the bench.
“We made it,” he whispered in her ear. “We’re in the Forbidden Lands.”
Gwen looked around her at the landscape. There was nothing to see except windblown hills and the winding river.
“Now what?” she whispered.
***
Corann spread his hands over the surface of a large wooden table placed in the center of the ballroom. On the table was a glowing, three-dimensional depiction of the Velvet Woods. Tiny trees waved their stick-like trunks in an unfelt breeze, a blue river glittered through the center, and small hills rose in waves across the table. Corann’s courtiers ringed the edge along with the rulers and advisors from Midvale and Southlands.
“Very detailed,” Queen Kaie said, clearly impressed. “You know the realm well.”
“As a ruler should,” said Corann. He nodded at two courtiers on his right. “Lady Fianna and Lord Kirwin filled a few holes in my knowledge. But I love this land and know it well.”
“Which is one reason we supported you in your rule, my lord,” said a courtier, and the others nodded. Corann bent his head in acknowledgement.
“What is over here, my lord?” asked a young courtier. He pointed at a blurry patch on the map. Corann’s lips grew thin.
“Although my efforts to connect with the room of enchantments have not been entirely successful yet, I have confidence that they will soon bear fruit. Until then, we must make do with my memories of the realm instead of a magical connection to the earth
below our feet.”
The young courtier flushed and looked down.
“My apologies, my lord. I did not mean…”
“My best guess for Faolan’s forces is that they will approach from the northeast, on the border of Wintertree,” Corann said smoothly. “They will need to set up a center of command from which they will send forays to test our defenses.” He turned to King Weylin. “Have our forces been organized by ability? Are they ready to move?”
“Yes,” he answered. “We have arranged our fighters in groups of three when possible, with one of each of our realms’ fighters in each group—Midvale’s animal connections, Southlands’ flower venoms, and Velvet Woods’ forest control. Where shall we send them? We have forty groups ready and waiting.”
“I have a mind to send them to the gap of Anyon and the river crossing at Perth.” Corann snapped his fingers and small yellow stars twinkled at the far border of the map. “Is there another location that should be patrolled? Any thoughts, my advisors?”
“Perhaps the Tremaine should be fortified,” said one. She sent a spark from her fingertip to land on a forested area near the border. “It is a very inviting passage, especially from the Wintertree side.”
“Well said. We shall send groups to all three locations. How long until they can be in place?”
“A few hours,” said King Weylin with a brisk nod. A howling wind outside surged and ended with the ballroom door swinging open with a bang. The startled courtiers stared, and Corann made a pushing gesture with his hands. The doors slowly closed against the raging storm outside. King Weylin coughed. “Perhaps a little longer.”
“Indeed,” said Corann. “Let us send our forces at once. There is no time for delay.”
King Weylin nodded and turned away. Before he had walked three steps, a rumbling roar echoed in the vast hall. The parquet floor trembled underfoot. Dust drifted from the ceiling, and the courtiers shrieked and shouted. Corann gripped the edge of the table with whitened knuckles until the shaking calmed, then he spoke.
Breenan Series Box Set Page 59