Tarah let out a slow breath. “Theodore explained it to me earlier. I was the one who bound you to the staff. So your full powers work only for me. You’ve noticed it, haven’t you? If someone else is holding the staff, your reach is smaller and your magic is weaker.”
Esmine frowned. It was a fact that had always bothered her. “Yeah, but this is Tolynn. She’s really good.”
“You saw the dream,” Tarah said with a shake of her head. “You’ll need your full power to do what’s necessary to save the Grove.”
The elf child swallowed. “Then what? We can’t do your plan, right? You have to stay here. Right?”
“I will need to transfer ownership of the staff over to Tolynn,” Tarah explained.
“Ownership . . . of me?” Esmine said.
“It is a simple thing,” Tolynn assured her.
“I have to give her the staff and then she has to give you a name,” Tarah explained. “If you accept the name, she won’t own you, but she will then be the owner of the bindings that hold you and that means you will be able to access your fullest power in her hands.”
“And more,” Tolynn said.
The child’s face filled with sorrow. Her voice now appeared in Tarah’s mind only and she sounded terribly frightened. But if we do this then when you come back, you can just give me my old name back. Right?
A sob escaped Tarah’s lips. No. Once the binding is passed on, it can’t be passed back. You will be with Tolynn.
But I don’t want to do that! Esmine said. I want to be with you.
“Do not be too sad, children,” Tolynn said comfortingly. “Whenever Tarah is within the range of your powers you will be able to speak with her.”
“But not in her mind,” the child said. “When I talk to her she will be like everyone else.”
“Will she ever be just like everyone else to you?” Tolynn asked.
“No, but-.” Her voice came from within Tarah’s mind again. You won’t stay in Malaroo forever. You and Djeri will leave with your new child back to your old home.
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” Tarah said. She gritted her teeth, reigning in her emotions. “Esmine, you must see that this is for the best. Your powers are that of a goddess. They aren’t meant for someone like me. I’m just a woods person. A tracker. A guide. You would be wasted in my hands.”
I give my powers to you anyway, Esmine said. They are mine to offer.
“And what better place for you to use them than in the Grove?” Tarah said. “With me, they would be of little use. Here, your powers could defend the world. No invaders could get to the Grove with you turning them around or making them stab each other or fall into ravines or whatever else your clever mind would come up with.”
A slight smile curled the child’s lips at the thought of it. But I wouldn’t be with you.
You would be here. In the place you love most and with a people you love, Tarah said, smiling through tears. She crouched down, meeting the child eye-to-eye. “Look at you. This form you chose. You were a beautiful, majestic, frightening rogue horse for a thousand years. But now you are an elf child who wears the clothing of the Roo-Tan. You’ve wanted to defend the Grove from the moment we stepped in here together.”
The child walked up and threw her arms around Tarah and Tarah could feel them as real as the arms of any child. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll be back,” Tarah promised her. “Many many times. Even if I do leave Malaroo one day, I’ll return. I won’t be able to stay away from you long.”
“You promise?” sobbed the child.
“I do,” she said.
Esmine stepped back. “You better not die for that stupid dwarf.”
“I’d better not,” Tarah agreed. She stood and wiped her face on the sleeve of her armor. She held out the staff. “Tolynn. I transfer ownership of this staff to you.”
Sniffling, Esmine looked to the elf. “What do you want to call me?”
“I have already given this a great deal of thought.” Tolynn then said the name in her people’s language, a swift whistle followed by a whisper. It was a beautiful name that didn’t exactly translate to common speech, but the closest Tarah could come up with was Ghost Child.
Esmine nodded. “I like it.” She looked at Tarah, “But will you still call me Esmine?”
“Forever,” Tarah said.
Esmine looked back to Tolynn. “Then I accept.”
Suddenly, there was a slight click in the back of Tarah’s mind. Esmine’s presence was gone. The child vanished as well. Tarah almost broke down again, but this was not a time for tears. It was a time of action. She needed to go to Djeri.
Tolynn reached out and gripped Tarah’s shoulder. “I foresaw this when I listened to you on the day we first met. I knew that this spirit was meant for the Grove. Ghost Child’s power is too strong for any one human. Too easy to abuse. A disaster in the hands of the wrong person.”
Tarah frowned at the revelation as she thought of her attack on Aloysius’ camp and how close she had come to causing just such a disaster. “Why didn’t you tell me when you knew? I was pretty mad at Esmine at the time. I might have given her to you then.”
Tolynn shook her head. “The decision had to come from your heart. I could not coerce it from you or trick you into it.” The ancient elf smiled. “You made the choice on your own, in making this sacrifice you have proven yourself worthy of the honor the trees gave you that first day.”
Tarah sighed. “I don’t know if I would have made this choice if I hadn’t needed to save Djeri.”
“I think you would have eventually,” Tolynn said.
Esmine reappeared, an awed look on her face. “It’s weird. Tolynn really is stronger than you. I can already see farther. Almost to the edge of the forest.”
“Wow, that’s . . . great,” said Tarah, doing her best not to be jealous.
“I can just reach Beth’s house,” she said and with slight disappointment added. “I would try to appear there, but nobody is home right now.”
Tarah opened her mouth. She wanted to say more to Esmine, but stopped herself. She didn’t have time for drawn-out goodbyes. She needed to look ahead. “I need to get going. Sir Edge had a big head start.”
“I’ll go with you back to Beth’s house,” Esmine said.
Tarah gave her a grateful nod, but realized something. She looked down at her empty hands. “You know, this leaves me without a weapon.”
Tolynn smiled. “That I can help you with. I believe you have earned your own Jharro weapon.”
“Really?” Tarah said. The thought had occurred to her a handful of times, but she had figured that owning Esmine had made her somehow ineligible.
The elf led Tarah over to her second tree. It was one of the oldest trees in the Grove and very nearly the largest. It was the tree Tarah thought of as, Old Cranky.
“Actually, I spoke to your tree some time ago,” Tolynn said “I had thought to make you a new bow, but your tree had other designs.”
The elf touched the tree and the bark parted, exposing the smooth gray wood beneath. Tolynn stuck her hand inside and a few moments later began to withdraw a long cylindrical piece of wood. It was covered in intricate runes that were quite different from the runes on her old staff. “I could not give this to you while you still wielded Ghost Child.”
“A staff,” Tarah said, a grin spreading her lips.
“Well,” said Tolynn as she continued to pull. The length of wood reached seven feet and then a little longer before she had pulled it completely free.
Tarah blinked in surprise. The shaft of the Jharro weapon was exactly as long as her staff had been, but there was also a diamond-shaped blade on the end. “A spear?”
“Not so different from a staff,” Tolynn said. “And once you come to learn your weapon and are able to remove some of the runes, it can change how you wish it to. But . . . ‘Old Cranky’ as you say, was feeling extra generous. Not many are given a gift this large.”
Tarah
reached out and grasped it. The weight was very similar to her old staff. It was perfectly balanced, but the length would take some getting used to. That didn’t erase the smile from her face though.
Esmine ran alongside her all the way to Beth’s house. The elf child seemed jealous over the spear and asked continuous questions about it. Tarah was still unsure. It felt good in her hand as she ran, but there was something unnerving about seeing that blade on the end. She had already tested it and it was quite sharp.
Just before she arrived at Beth’s homestead, Esmine announced that Willum had returned. The Academy graduate was standing there waiting for her and with him were a couple of old friends.
“Hello, Neddy!” she said. She approached the mule with a smile. He was outfitted for travel. He had been saddled up and Willum had already put together provisions and tied them on. All that was left to do was grab her bedroll and pack and she would be ready to leave.
The mule snorted at her reproachfully.
“I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry for leaving you at the stables for so long without coming to see you. I have been kept very busy.”
Tarah had taken him out with her occasionally when sent on tracking missions for the Protector, but Neddy had spent most of their time in Malaroo stuck with the less-intelligent horses. He snorted again, but nudged her with his nose to let her know it would be okay.
“Good. Because we are heading out to save Djeri,” she said and looked over at Willum. “Why’d you bring Albert?”
She had asked him to bring Neddy to her, but not the second animal.
Willum reached out to pat the scarred warhorse. “Because I’ve decided to come with you myself.” He gave her a bashful look. “Staying here was a self-indulgent choice on my part and I realized that since I followed you and Djeri this far I can’t abandon you now.”
“Good!” she said, remembering that this was as she had dreamed. Willum should be there.
“Besides,” Willum added. “Theodore thinks he’s figured out how to disguise us from the Troll Mother if we don’t catch up to the rest of them before they reach the Troll Swamps.”
“That’s why I wanted to you to bring Neddy to me,” Tarah told him. “The Troll Mother is going to be sensing for two-footed humans, not four-footed animals,” she explained. “Once we reach the swamps we are probably safest mounted up.”
When she headed inside the guest house to grab her things Esmine was waiting for her. “You will come back,” the child ordered.
“I will and I’ll bring Djeri with me,” Tarah assured her. After a second’s thought, she picked up Djeri’s sword and helmet. “You just make sure that the Grove doesn’t get destroyed while I’m gone.”
Esmine nodded.
When Tarah came back outside and began tying her belongings onto Neddy’s saddle, she noticed Willum giving her an expectant look. “What?”
“You gonna tell us how you got that spear?” he asked.
“It was a trade,” Tarah said.
Esmine pouted. “You lost out on that deal.”
Chapter Twenty Three
“Is this really worth our time?” Arcon wondered as Mellinda climbed the stone stairs, Felberon and Welven ascending right behind her.
Her fingers undulated lazily as she stepped, weaving the spell that silenced the sound of her footfalls and the footfalls of the heavy trollkin behind her. This late at night she wasn’t too worried about running into any guards but it was better not to chance it.
He has ignored my commands and hidden from me, she replied. I won’t broker insolence from my servants.
“I see that, but coming straight into the king’s palace for him? Seems to me like there is the distinct possibility of an embarrassing situation if the king or Murtha catch us here. Wouldn’t it be easier to grab him some other time? He’s not exactly trying to hide from you. You’d see him every day if you were still working at the Mother’s womb.”
Mellinda sniffed, tired of his questioning her every move. It was better than his spouting off inane lists or constant shouts of distraction, but not by much. Grabbing Djeri here lets him know he’s not safe anywhere. As for the king, if he sees us, I’ll pretend I came here to speak with him.
They came to the floor where she had been told Djeri had taken up residence. There were multiple rooms here and she knew that some of them were taken up by the king’s new Jharro wielding guards. She sent out magical feelers with the rings, trying to determine which room was Djeri’s.
If only she’d had her old bewitching powers she would have been able to tell instantly which room he was in. The methods of detection available with elemental magic weren’t nearly as elegant, but could still be effective. Small threads of air magic curled under the doors of the rooms and spread out into the space inside, giving her a vague picture of the occupants.
There was no specific detail, but she could see that all of the rooms along this corridor were occupied. They were all large trollkin, similar in size. A slight smile curled her lips. Only one of the rooms had a second occupant, a smaller one, curled up on the floor. The dog thing.
Mellinda approached the door, enacting spells before even touching the handle. The door swung open on silenced hinges and a ward of air magic covered the walls, floor and ceiling, muting any sounds that would issue from inside. She walked in, followed by the two trollkin who shut the door behind them.
The three figures filled the room and as she ended the muting spell around herself and the trollkin, the dog thing awoke immediately. It let out a growl and Mellinda lashed out at it with heated threads of air and water, a whip of steam.
The dog yelped and she paralyzed it with a quick spell. Djeri bolted upright. “Gray?”
Mellinda conjured a dim orb of light just above her head. It took more power to make a dim light than a bright one, but she knew that the lighting gave her sinuous body a sinister outline. It also made the two huge trollkin that stood behind her with their arms crossed look even more menacing.
“Djeri, you’ve been avoiding me,” she chided.
The look that the part-dwarf gave her was sullen. It wasn’t the surprise or fear she had been expecting. How irritating.
“You haven’t been around, my queen.” Djeri called her queen too quickly. Getting him to call her by her true title had always been a chore in the past. “I’ve been covering for you with the king, though. I’ve been telling him how busy you are.”
“He’s prepared for this,” Arcon observed.
Indeed, she replied mentally. Of course she had warned him. “You have been covering for me?” she hissed. “The king knows my value well enough without your help. His newest subjects are always seen to.”
That was mostly true. As the number of births each day increased, so had the number of mistakes made by the Mother. It had been difficult for her to find the time to see them all. The stone catacombs beneath the Old Hospital were currently filled with defective newborns waiting for her ministrations. Of course, she had her own uses for them.
“If this is about Murtha, things have been difficult,” Djeri said with a shrug. “With all the births and the arrival of new weapons from the midden, we have been very busy. She hasn’t been as interested in me lately.”
“He’s definitely prepared,” said Arcon.
Or so he thinks, she said. “Odd. When I spoke with Murtha earlier tonight, she had a different tale to tell.”
Now she saw the flicker of fear she had wanted to see in his eyes.
“Truly?” Djeri said. “I wonder what she had to say.”
“She told me that you have regained some of your memories.” Mellinda leaned forward and used a few flows of air to give her eyes a supernatural glow. “She says that you have remembered a wife and that you are no longer interested in her.”
Djeri sighed. “I had kinda hoped that she would understand.”
Mellinda snarled. “She certainly did! She understood that the changes I had made to her didn’t work! Murtha said that I was al
l wrong. That you preferred tall manly women with bent noses!”
A frown passed over the part-dwarf’s features. “She’s not manly.”
“I don’t care what your wife was like in you past life, Djeri! That past life is over! As is my chance to get Murtha on my side with seduction.” Mellinda allowed an evil grin to pass over her lips. “But I can let that loss go because during this time that was wasted on Murtha, you have become one of the king’s closest companions. You, Djeri, will be my voice with the king.”
Djeri’s frown deepened. “And if I refuse?”
“If you refuse!” Mellinda reached for him with the power of the rings. There were so many things she could do to hurt him. Swell one lung perhaps? Cause his heart to shrink? These were reversible things, but-.
“What was that?” Arcon wondered.
Mellinda bared her teeth. Nothing happened. She reached out with the body changing powers of the rings and was thwarted again.
A suspicion flooded through her and she switched to spirit sight. She had seen the incomplete bond on Djeri the day he had exited the Mother’s womb. It was one of the reasons she had kept him close. She had been curious about it, but it had seemed to have no effect on him. It certainly never affected her ability to use the powers of the rings on him.
Now that faint cloudy line had become a thick cord. A powerful halo of bonding magic protected him from spirit magic intrusion. This could only mean one thing.
“Bonded!” she growled.
Djeri dove at her.
Mellinda had been unprepared for a direct attack. The part-dwarf trollkin struck her midsection and drove her back into her two bulky companions. In the fractions of a second it took for her to react, he had already driven his stout claws into her abdomen. He shoved his fingers inside of her, tearing at her flesh.
Then her paralysis spell hit him and he was unable to move. Felberon and Welven pulled him off of her and threw him back against the stone bench he had been sleeping on. As the two trollkin threw punches at his defenseless body, Mellinda assessed the damage he had done.
“Agh!” Archon cried. “Why do I have to feel it too?”
Behemoth (The Jharro Grove Saga Book 6) Page 35