Blue-white fireballs of energy sprang into being in all eight corners of the room. Syukoe heard Junko scream as the concubine flung herself out of the way. The energy balls raced along the floor toward the center of the room, leaving burning trails in their wakes, which shone in the semi-darkness like the spokes of a giant wheel. They met and coalesced under the base of the stone table. The entire structure lit up, becoming as transparent as rock crystal.
Upon the glowing coals of the lit brazier, Master Iku cast a handful of powder. Tendrils of spicy smoke curled up into the supercharged air, tickling Syukoe’s nostrils. Abruptly, the chanting ceased.
The energy in the room thrummed with such intensity, Syukoe could barely remain standing. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Junko, collapsed upon the floor like a discarded doll wrapped in a pile of silken rags.
Master Iku, a fine sheen of sweat upon his brow, clapped his hands together three times and spoke a single word. To the uninitiated, a Word of Power was felt, rather than heard. Syukoe squeezed her head in her hands, fighting to remain conscious, as the Word blasted her mind and body like the sonorous voice of a great bell.
A sphere of energy manifested inside the bronze cauldron. Master Iku slowly raised his hands and the sphere followed until it hovered at eye level. The ring floated within.
Still off-balance from the residual effects of the Word of Power, Syukoe fell to the floor as a third massive shockwave hit the chamber. She stared in stunned disbelief as the seemingly solid stone of the doors bulged inwards, as if their substance had been somehow fundamentally altered, making them more like clay than rock.
Somehow, the Kirians remained standing, all thirteen pairs of eyes fixed upon the ring. A steady shower of rock dust sifted down from the ceiling. Syukoe coughed as the fine grit worked its way into her throat and lungs. She scrambled to her feet and whirled to face the deforming doors, drawing her sword because her warrior’s instinct compelled her to fight, even against impossible odds.
The room shook steadily now. The Kirians began a new chant, this one slow and deliberate, each word a Word of Power. Syukoe moaned in pain, struggling to keep a grasp on both sword and consciousness. The Words kept a steady beat, in rhythm to the synchronized pulses of the mentally joined sorcerers.
Syukoe heard a loud pop and turned in time to see the ring fall through the sphere back into the cauldron, its light extinguished. That light now burned within the sphere itself, with such intensity that Syukoe could not look directly at it. In a moment of clarity, she realized that the magic of the Key had been separated from the ring and placed within the sphere.
“ Princess!” Master Iku called out. “We require you now!”
Syukoe moved as quickly as she dared, fighting to keep her balance. She slipped into the circle of magicians beside Master Iku, who indicated that she should hold out her hand. She braced herself for what she knew would come next.
The Master had briefed her only this morning on how the Kirians would form the link to the future Onjara. The magical principle was based on the blood tie between the generations that stretched unbroken down through the years, connecting Syukoe with her descendent. Her living blood would catalyze the spell that would open a hole in the fabric of Time, allowing contact with the target. The Kirians would then cast the Key through the hole and into the body of its new host, thus effectively sealing it off from the king’s control.
Without the power of the Griffin Ring at his disposal, Shiura Onjara could no longer command his armies. The foul creatures he had conjured up from the Void were compelled to serve him by the magic of the ring; freed from that compulsion, they would be thrown into disarray and made far more vulnerable. Syukoe’s forces would then have a chance to defeat them, and perhaps some semblance of victory could be won from the disaster of the rebellion.
Bereft of his deadliest weapon, the king himself would also be weakened, giving the beleaguered Kirians a chance to neutralize his magic. Syukoe had made Master Iku swear to her that if they ultimately succeeded in bringing her father down, the Kirians would find a way to imprison, rather than kill, him. She still loved him, despite everything.
The floor heaved sharply. Syukoe gasped in dismay as the solid stone of the walls began to ripple in glistening black waves.
“ He is unraveling the magic that holds the very substance of the Tower together,” Master Iku stated grimly. “Soon, the rock will be like putty, unable to hold its shape. We must hurry.” He grasped Syukoe’s wrist in his left hand and held it over the lighted charcoals of the brazier. In his right hand, he held a small ritual blade, poised over Syukoe’s waiting flesh. He closed his eyes and began to intone the opening verse of the spell.
Master Iku spoke rapidly, the words running together in a continuous buzz of sound. The other Kirians stood silently, eyes closed, brows furrowed. Some perspired heavily, others betrayed the intensity of their effort with barely a twitch of an eyelid or lip. Oddly, despite the chaos of the dissolving room, the group seemed locked in a bubble of stillness, shielded from the worst of the punishing energy blasts directed at them by their enemy. Syukoe spared a quick moment of concern for Junko, still sprawled unmoving in a corner. She hoped the girl could survive the coming storm.
The chant reached a crescendo as Master Iku shouted out the last Word. Syukoe’s head exploded in noise and white light. Simultaneously, she felt a searing pain lance across her left palm. She cried out and felt herself slumping to the floor, where darkness enveloped her like a velvet cocoon.
Part III
How long she lay in a swoon, she did not know, but when Syukoe regained her senses, she found herself still on the floor, eyes level with the hem of Master Iku’s robe. The sour taste of vomit filled her mouth. She gagged and spat, then levered herself up on one elbow and attempted to focus her eyes. Her head throbbed with pain. Looking up, she cried out in astonishment and climbed shakily to her feet in order to get a better view of the extraordinary phenomenon.
Hovering at eye level within the circle of the sorcerers, a window-like opening appeared through which Syukoe could look out and see a forest clearing. Water drizzled from the dreary sky. Syukoe smelled the pungent odors of wet earth and rain, and felt the moisture-laden wind gusting coldly against her sweating face.
“ What…what is happening?” she whispered, but Master Iku seemed not to hear. All of his attention remained focused on the scene before him. Ominously, the chamber had stopped shaking, but the walls continued to ripple and flow. Syukoe, even without any trained Talent to speak of, could sense that her father now gathered his power for a final, cataclysmic assault. Whatever the Kirians are going to do, they had better do it now, she thought.
The sound of footsteps, squelching through mud and leaf litter, drifted through the open portal. Master Iku drew in a sharp breath. “The target is here,” he said softly. He raised his right hand, and the drifting sphere containing the Key settled gently into his palm. All eyes were riveted onto a path that snaked out of the forest and across the clearing towards the portal. A figure, swathed in a dark cloak, approached through the trees.
A hood obscured most of the face; even so, Syukoe still recognized the distinctive gait of a non-combat trained female. She walked with the deliberate step of one who knows the path well and is eager to arrive at its end. Abruptly, the woman stopped dead in her tracks and pushed back the hood of her cloak. She stared directly at the portal, her mouth forming an “O” of surprise. She seemed more puzzled than afraid.
The Kirians all gasped in dismay.
The woman was human!
“ Master, there must be some mistake!” cried Ankai Noemi, the most senior member of the Kirian Society after Master Iku. The murmured agreements from the rest of the group echoed the consternation in her voice.
“ The calculations were carefully checked and rechecked. They were completely accurate. There is no mistake. This… no, she… is the target. But how…” Master Iku’s voice trailed off in mid-sentence.
�
� Master, look!” Syukoe pointed at the woman’s midsection. The pronounced swell of her shift told the tale of her condition.
“ Ahhh, I see now!” Master Iku exclaimed. “She is with child. Of course! It is not this human who is our target, but the child she carries. It must be so!”
“ But, you said the target was my direct descendent. How can a human child be the target, unless…” Suddenly, Syukoe understood. The child must be only half-human, sired on this woman by an elven man, a son of the House of Onjara.
The woman-a girl really-sidled closer to the portal. Her eyes held no fear, but rather an intense curiosity, coupled with a natural wariness. She was comely, for a human; a wild shock of black curls framed her smooth, heart-shaped face. She paused, close enough now for Master Iku to reach through and touch her, and peered into the portal as if she were looking through the window of a house. She spoke aloud in her own tongue-meaningless to Syukoe’s ears-but the upward inflection of her voice seemed to indicate a question. All within the chamber of the Black Tower held themselves in complete stillness.
At the same moment, Junko regained consciousness and let out a blood-curdling shriek. Simultaneously, the great stone doors of the chamber exploded inwards, sending rock shards hurtling through the air with deadly force. The lethal fusillade ricocheted off the energy shield surrounding the Kirians and the Time Portal. Junko, still outside the shield’s protection, was pulped in the space of an eye blink, reduced to tattered shreds of flesh and bone.
Within the doorway stood Shiura Onjara, King of Alasiri.
The Kirians were out of time.
“ Master Iku, I believe you and your fellows have something that belongs to me,” the king said, his voice satin-smooth and full of the dark promise of torture and death. Even so, in this direst of moments, Syukoe still felt a pang of guilt, for was she not part of the betrayal that had brought them all to this terrible place?
The king glided into the room on silent feet, carefully avoiding the gobbets of meat that had once been his favorite concubine. Syukoe thought him magnificent, garbed as he was in full court dress-an elaborate layering of richly decorated robes, belted at the waist with a jeweled girdle. His long black hair-so like her own-was bound back with a gold clip. Upon his brow sat the Crown of Alasiri, a simple circlet of gold set about with blood-red rubies. He approached the energy shield that protected his enemies and raised his right hand. A single tear leaked from Syukoe’s eye at the sight of her father’s mutilated hand, the stump of his ring finger bound with a strip of bloodstained linen.
A startled yelp tore Syukoe’s attention away from the advancing menace of her father. She looked up in time to see Master Iku lunge through the portal, and with his free hand, seize the human girl by the wrist.
“ Someone help me!” he cried, as the terrified human struggled wildly to escape, clawing and slapping at the old sorcerer’s face and hand, all the while screaming out a steady barrage of gibberish. Syukoe dove in and grabbed the girl’s flailing free arm and together, princess and sorcerer hauled the heavily pregnant human up off her feet and part way through the portal, where she dangled, her body straddling the boundary between the two worlds.
The energy sphere of the Key, still balanced on Master Iku’s right palm, began to pulsate in time to a heartbeat; whether to the king’s or the unborn Onjara’s, Syukoe did not know. Using her warrior’s strength, Syukoe had successfully pinned the human girl’s arms behind her and now held her steady. The girl had gone quiescent, her face slack, eyes half closed.
“ Hurry, Master! Do whatever it is you’re going to do, while this girl is still in a swoon!” Syukoe urged.
What happened next took only a few heartbeats, but to Syukoe, time seemed strangely expanded, each moment drawn out and rolling before her eyes in excruciatingly slow motion.
A sunburst erupted overhead, sending a sheet of flame roaring downwards to engulf the group of fiercely concentrating mages. Several of them cried aloud as they strained to maintain the integrity of the energy shield-the only thing that stood between them and the devastating power of the king’s magical attack. Despite their combined strengths, Syukoe could feel the shield failing as the air around them began to heat up.
Master Iku appeared oblivious to the king’s presence, so focused was he on his task. Muttering rapidly in a singsong chant, he traced a sigil upon the human girl’s belly, then to Syukoe’s amazement, he plunged his hand containing the Key deep into her body. The girl convulsed and let out a strangled cry, then collapsed back into a stupor. The Master withdrew his hand and Syukoe saw that no trace of blood stained it. The Key had disappeared.
Needing no prompting, Syukoe shoved the unconscious human back through the portal where she lay sprawled in the wet grass, her unruly mane of dark curls spread about her head like a tangled bush. She moaned softly as the rain pattered down upon her upturned face.
“ Ai, get back, Princess!” she heard Master Iku shout. Syukoe barely got her arms out of the way in time as the portal slammed shut with a blast of air and a noise like a thunderclap. The air within the chamber shimmered, superheated now to the point of combustion. The Kirians had clearly reached their limits of endurance. Hair and clothing began to smoke, just moments away from igniting.
“ Get down behind me, Princess,” Master Iku gasped. He raised his hands towards the ceiling. Syukoe did as the Master bade, curling herself into a tight ball and covering her head. She began to pray to The One for deliverance and an end to all of their suffering. She prayed for her father’s soul, that it be washed clean of the foulness and corruption that had warped it into something so unspeakably evil.
The Key lay safely in the future now, locked away from Shiura Onjara, hidden in the body of a half-elven child. Syukoe prayed for the Goddess’s protection for that child, for as a half-blood, its life would surely be a difficult one, filled with hardship and uncertainty. What was to become of the Key, no one, not even the great and powerful Kirian Society, had been able to divine.
“ Kirians! To me!” shouted Master Iku. Twin bolts of blue-white energy exploded from his fingertips. The resulting blast hammered Syukoe’s senses into tatters. She tumbled down into darkness and knew no more.
Part IV
In a dusty chamber high atop a semi-abandoned tower, a midwife delivered a baby from its dying mother’s body. She cut the cord and wrapped the newborn girl-wrinkled, red, and capped with a thin shock of dark curls-in an old wool blanket. The old woman who had struggled to save both mother and child held the baby close, tears running in rivulets down her lined cheeks. She had failed.
“ My poor, Dru…my poor little Dru!” the woman sobbed quietly.
The dying woman-barely out of girlhood, really-stirred and cried out weakly. “My baby… Where is my baby?”
“ Here’s yer sweet little babe, my lamb… a beautiful little girl,” the old woman crooned, laying the whimpering infant next to her mother. Weakened from blood loss, the new mother could do little but gaze at her child. It would have been clear to anyone witnessing the sad tableau that her love burned fierce and hot for the daughter she would never know beyond these last few moments of her life.
“ Claudia,” the young woman whispered.
“ Yes, my lamb,” the old woman answered.
“ I want to name her Jelena…I’ve always loved that name.”
“ Jelena…Weren’t that a name of an ancient queen? From one o’ those old stories you an’ yer brother loved so much?”
The dying girl nodded weakly. “Promise you’ll look after her, Claudia, because no one else will. Promise you’ll not let them hurt her because…because of what she is.”
“ I promise,” Claudia sobbed.
“ Promise…you…you’ll keep the ring…safe until…” The girl’s voice trailed off and her eyes fluttered closed.
“ Dru?…Drucilla?” Claudia leaned close and peered into the girl’s waxen face. She could already feel the cold presence of Lady Death, come to gather her precious Drucill
a up into her cloak of blackest velvet and carry her away on silent wings to Heaven.
Drucilla stirred and opened her eyes, but they focused now on something beyond the living world.
“ I swear I’ll keep th’ ring what belonged to yer baby’s dad, and give it to her when she’s ready fer it.” Claudia kissed Drucilla’s cold forehead. “Rest now, my lamb. Go to sleep,” she murmured. Gathering the baby up into her arms, she sat in the room’s only chair to wait.
She did not have to wait long, and when it was over, she placed the baby in an old laundry basket and set about the task of preparing the young mother for her grave.
When she had finished, she gathered up all of the soiled linen and picked up the newborn in her basket. She took one last look at the shrouded form upon the bed, then exited the room, pulling the heavy oak door closed behind her. She negotiated the narrow tower stairs with caution, fearful that one misstep could send her and the baby tumbling to serious injury or worse.
At the bottom, Claudia breathed a sigh of relief. So many things to take care of now , she thought. The duke must be told, and a wet nurse found for the child. She recalled a kitchen maid who had just lost a baby not more than three days ago. P’rhaps she can be persuaded. She set the laundry basket down and rubbed the small of her back in an attempt to ease the pain that plagued her. The baby began to wail.
“ Oh, poor little lamb! Yer hungry, o’course, and with no mam t’feed ye,” she said. “Well, let’s get a move on, then. C’mon Claudia, old girl. You’ve got work t’do!” She hoisted up her burdens and headed for the castle kitchens.
~~~
Later that evening, Claudia lay in bed, the sleeping baby tucked in a makeshift cradle alongside. The duke, not surprisingly, had expressed no desire to have anything to do with the child, commanding Claudia to take it away and keep it with her, in the servants’ hall. Claudia was only too happy to obey. The kitchen maid who had lost her own baby balked at first but eventually allowed herself to be persuaded by the ten copper a week fee-double the usual charge-that Claudia agreed to pay her. Claudia could have used that extra money for other things, but she had no alternative.
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