Unbroken Chain: The Darker Road

by Jaleigh Johnson

  What were they waiting for?

  Then she felt the child’s arms encircle her waist.

  Ashok had his chain half off his belt when the strong arms of Agny’s warriors grabbed him. Another came around his neck, completely immobilizing him. He jerked his head around enough to see Skagi and Cree similarly pinned. Skagi was on the ground not far from where Ilvani had fallen after being hit by some spell of Agny’s. For a breath, Ashok had thought she was dead. His reason fled, and it took all three of the warriors to restrain him.

  The nightmare reared and screamed at the violent outburst. The Rashemi warriors backed away, but one of the other witches came forward and threw up her hands.

  An aura of unnatural silence descended on the area around the stallion. When the nightmare tried to scream again, he found his voice gone. Ashok tried to free himself, instinctively reaching for the beast. He needed the nightmare’s fire to burn through the men who held him.

  Suddenly, Agny’s shouts changed and resounded with a shrill desperation that made Ashok pause in his struggles.

  The child had broken free of the witch holding her. With a pinched look of determination on her round face, she ran to where Ilvani lay. There was absolutely no fear in her eyes. She lay down beside the witch and wrapped her arms around her.

  Ashok’s arms went slack. A stunned silence settled over the combatants. Even Skagi seemed at a loss to explain the strange spectacle of Ilvani and the child.

  Ilvani looked at the girl as if she were an unpleasant insect that had just landed on her arm, but she seemed reluctant to brush her off. On the other hand, the child appeared enraptured by the witch, burying her face in her dress and drawing in the witch’s scent.

  “Don’t hurt her,” the other masked witch said. “I beg you.”

  “It’s my fault, Sister,” said the witch who’d been holding the child. “I will give my life—”

  “Be silent,” Agny told them both. She clenched her hands into fists. “Tell your men to step back, Slengolt. Don’t harm them.”

  One of the warriors barked an order, and the others released Ashok and the brothers. Skagi went for his falchion, which had been on the ground next to him under the boot of one of the warriors.

  “Don’t,” Ashok told him. “We said we didn’t come in violence. We stay true to that promise.” He met Agny’s eyes. “Ilvani won’t harm the child.”

  Even as he spoke, he could tell the witch didn’t believe him. “Come to me, Elina,” she pleaded with the child. “Come away from that woman. She’s dangerous.”

  “You should listen to your keeper,” Ilvani said to the child. It was the first time she’d spoken since Agny had struck her down. “I’m not who you think I am.”

  The little girl shook her head and held on tighter.

  Ilvani sighed impatiently and sat up. Ashok watched her carefully extricate the girl and set her aside. The child immediately crawled back and tried to climb into her lap. Ilvani pushed her away—not as gently the second time.

  The witches tensed. Ashok watched as the child’s eyes filled with tears. She started to cry. Her sobs were loud in the stillness. The effect on the watching crowd was that of helpless confusion. For her part, Ilvani sighed again and gave in, letting the girl scramble into her lap. She held her arms out awkwardly from her body so as little of her was touching the girl as possible.

  “Explain this,” Agny said, her voice betraying her helpless anger. “Explain yourselves!”

  Ashok found himself wanting to say the same thing. He had no explanation for any of it.

  “Ilvani,” he said. “What—”

  “It’s Yaraella,” Ilvani said tersely.

  “What?” This from the other masked witch. “What did you say?”

  “She smells her mother’s scent on me,” Ilvani said. “Yaraella is in me and on me. The offspring can tell.” She reached out hesitantly and ran two fingers through the child’s hair. To the onlookers it might have seemed like a gesture of affection, but Ashok knew Ilvani better than that.

  “The hair is the same,” Ilvani said. “Her eyes—it’s the snow rabbit, only smaller.” She looked up at Agny. “I have to get rid of her.”

  “Elina,” Agny said. “Please …”

  “Not the offspring,” Ilvani said urgently. “The mother. You have to help me get rid of her.”

  Agny and Ilvani stared at each other. Finally, Agny stepped forward. Ashok paced her step for step, making sure she was aware of him watching in the background. Agny nodded to him once and then kneeled beside Ilvani and the child.

  “Will you let me look at you?” she asked Ilvani.

  It was an odd question, since the two witches hadn’t taken their eyes off each other, but he knew it must be a deeper connection Agny sought, a magical one.

  Ilvani glanced up at Ashok. He saw the uncertainty in her eyes.

  “It’s up to you,” he said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  Ilvani turned back to Agny and nodded. “Do it,” she said.

  Agny put her hands against Ilvani’s temples. She closed her eyes and murmured something under her breath. Ashok couldn’t make out most of the words, but he recognized that she uttered the name “Bhalla” several times, the same name Ralemvic had used in his farewell to Tatigan.

  When she opened her eyes, Agny was breathing hard. Her hands trembled. She looked from Ilvani to the child and back again.

  “We need to speak—alone,” Agny said. She looked up at Ashok and the brothers. “Will you all come with me?”

  “Sister, is this wise?” the other masked witch asked.

  “Yes, Sree,” Agny said. “If you’d seen what I did just now, you’d agree. We’ll go to Yaraella’s hut. You and Reina and the warriors will stand guard outside.”

  “What about the demon?” Reina asked. She held up her hands, prepared to cast a spell on the nightmare.

  “He won’t attack unless you provoke him,” Ashok said.

  Agny eyed the beast with suspicion. “Put it in a stable. Reina, secure it with a protective circle. It won’t be harmed,” Agny said when Ashok started to protest, “unless it provokes us.” She looked at Ilvani. “Will you come?”

  “Will you take Yaraella away?” Ilvani asked.

  “I’ll try,” Agny said. “That is all I can promise.”

  “Then we’ll come.”

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  INSIDE THE HUT, AGNY LIT A FIRE. SHE LAID A BUNDLE OF twigs and dried leaves on the hearth and whispered a prayer over them.

  Ilvani sat in a corner near the flames. The child stayed close to her, holding on to a piece of her dress.

  “Please, share the fire,” Agny told Ashok and the brothers. “It will only grow colder outside, but you already know that.”

  Skagi lingered near the door, but Cree sat down in front of the fire. Ashok sat next to him.

  “Whom do you pray to?” Cree asked. He gestured to the offering.

  “Bhalla—the goddess also known as Chauntea,” Agny explained. “But I also beseech the spirits of the trees. Yaraella was especially close to the telthors of the pinewoods. I’m asking them to remember her and think well of those gathered here. We need all the guidance and good thoughts they can offer.”

  “Does this mean you no longer consider us a threat?” Ashok asked.

  “Then why doesn’t she order her guards to step away?” Skagi muttered. He held the door slightly ajar to keep an eye on the men outside.

  “You are all dangerous. If I thought you were a threat to me or to that child”—she looked at the girl, Elina, and her eyes softened with affection—“I would have had you all killed. But I also let my anger rule me for a time. I won’t let that happen again. Why did you come here?”

  “You saw the reason,” Ilvani said. “You saw her in my mind.”

  “Yes,” Agny said. Her eyes looked haunted. She held her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “But I want to hear the tale from your lips. I want to
know how much you understand about what is happening.”

  Ashok said, “The woman in Ilvani’s dreams asked for her help. Some force threatens her, hurts her, and in turn hurts Ilvani. She has the scars to prove it. They were what led us to Rashemen.”

  “May I see them?” Agny said. “These scars?”

  Ilvani shifted closer to the fire. The child followed her. She pulled up her right sleeve to reveal the Rashemi language carved into her flesh. Agny examined the symbols in the flickering light and traced one gently with her fingernail.

  “You carved these without knowing our language?” she asked.

  “I know your language now,” Ilvani said. “It soaks my tongue.”

  Agny looked at the witch sharply. “Prove it.”

  Ilvani spoke in a language Ashok didn’t understand. Agny showed no reaction, but Ashok thought she was agitated when she motioned Ilvani to roll down her sleeve.

  “It’s a prayer, if you’re curious,” Agny said. “Yaraella’s call to the spirits for blessing and protection.”

  “Her call has gone beyond Ilvani,” Ashok said. “Through her, the spirits of the Shadowfell are being driven mad. The same thing is happening here, isn’t it?” he pressed.

  “We saw the withered crops,” Cree said, “and the dead horse.”

  “Don’t forget that our caravan barely made it through the mountains,” Skagi said from the door. “All the nastiest beasts were following our witch. If one of yours is behind it, I’ll thank you to tell her to stop.”

  “You are correct. We have seen the same signs and portents in our lands, but the link that caused the disturbances is not as strong,” Agny said. “It draws no monsters to us. It only maddens our livestock and withers our crops. But that is damage enough.”

  “The child,” Ilvani said. “Yaraella’s offspring is the link.”

  Agny nodded. “So the spirits are not at rest because some evil force threatens Yaraella’s spirit. She’s reaching out to our world for aid, through her daughter and through you,” she said to Ilvani. “The three of you are connected. Across the length of Faerûn, you feel one another’s pain.”

  “But why Ilvani?” Ashok said. “Why didn’t Yaraella reach out to one of the wychlaran instead of a stranger, one not even of her own race?”

  “I couldn’t say, but in life Yaraella kept herself isolated from her people,” Agny said. “After her husband’s death in battle, we reached out to her, tried to convince her to join the wychlaran. Her connection to the spirit world was deeper and more intense than that of any witch I’d ever seen. She received no training to hone her gifts. Her power came as naturally as breath to her. Sometimes she was able to use it to predict the future.”

  Ashok and Cree exchanged a glance, though neither spoke. “What happened to her?” Ashok asked.

  “Power such as Yaraella’s had taken its toll on the spirit. Living eyes were not meant to see all the things she had seen. The forces of death, the gods, and other worlds—it’s a heavy burden, especially for one so young and inexperienced. Yaraella chose not to join the wychlaran—she preferred to stay with her daughter here, in the home where she was born—but the hathran Sree was helping her to cope with the visions and the spirits that reached out to communicate with her.”

  In the firelight, Agny’s eyes looked sad. “I thought Sree would be able to change her mind. Many of us believed Yaraella would eventually become an othlor, a ‘true one’ we call them. They are the wisest and most powerful wychlaran, and their connection to the Feywild is strong.”

  “The Feywild,” Ashok said. The name evoked a memory, his father teaching him about the mirror world, Faerûn, and its peoples. He’d spoken of the Feywild as a world existing alongside Faerûn in much the same way the Shadowfell did. Where the Shadowfell was a twisted world of darkness, the Feywild reflected an idyllic landscape. Ashok remembered his father speaking of the place with disdain.

  “Though she is a fine teacher, Sree’s efforts came too late, I’m afraid,” Agny said, her voice heavy with emotion. “Yaraella’s visions drove her mad, and a little over a month ago she took her own life.”

  Agny reached out to stroke Elina’s hair as she said this, but the child was too absorbed with Ilvani. She paid no attention to their talk.

  “Death hasn’t brought her peace,” Ashok said. “She still clings to the world she wanted to leave.”

  As he spoke, Ashok heard the words of his father echo mockingly in his head. He remembered the shadows that clung to him as he hung by chains in the caves of Ikemmu.

  No god calls them home, his father said.

  You’re wrong, Father—Yaraella has a goddess, Ashok thought. Why didn’t Bhalla, the witches’ goddess, come to take her servant? Wasn’t she good enough, powerful enough, to serve Her? Didn’t Bhalla care about her children?

  “The storm,” Ilvani said, breaking into Ashok’s dark thoughts. “She’s afraid of it. It chases her wherever she goes.”

  “The storm is part of the dream,” Agny reasoned. “It masks the true threat.”

  Ashok felt himself growing impatient. “Which is?”

  Agny shrugged. “It could be anything—an entity of the Shadowfell perhaps, or a telthor. Perhaps Yaraella displeased a spirit that was trying to communicate with her when she took her life. Her death severed its link to this world. If so, it may have decided to punish Yaraella by preventing her from passing beyond the realm of shadows to Bhalla’s side.”

  “Ilvani’s connection to the Shadowfell makes her vulnerable to both Yaraella and whatever threatens her,” Ashok said.

  “Not only that,” Agny said. She regarded Ilvani in the wavering light. “I see a bit of her when I look at you. The expression in your eyes—you exist only partly in this world. None of us here can fully comprehend what you see when you take in this room, or the lake outside, and the village. You are like Yaraella’s mirror in the shadow world. Because of this, I am not surprised her spirit sought yours when she was in turmoil. You were the only one who might share her pain.”

  “She’s sharing it,” Skagi said, “but it’s getting people killed.”

  “Blunt as usual, Brother,” Cree said. “But he’s right. I lost an eye to whatever force is causing this. We’ve lost friends, good warriors—we’re going to stop it.”

  “And you intend to use weapons to fight this evil?” Agny said. Dark amusement crept into her voice.

  “They brought us this far,” Cree said. “What has your magic done but keep people locked in their homes or driven them away?”

  “You said yourself the link to Yaraella is stronger in Ilvani than Elina,” Ashok said. “There has to be a way we can use that. If she’s reaching out for help, why can’t we answer?”

  Agny considered. “What you suggest is not beyond wychlaran abilities, but we do not involve outsiders in our sacred rituals. Ilvani’s presence may corrupt the connection instead of strengthen it.”

  Ashok saw Cree bristle at the insult, but Ilvani didn’t react. She looked weary through the eyes, and the presence of the child clearly unnerved her. Ashok couldn’t get over how the girl looked at Ilvani, for all the world as if she were her mother.

  “I don’t know that we have any other choice,” Ashok said. “If we move on, if the child leaves the village, you might find peace again, but Elina and Ilvani never will until Yaraella’s spirit is freed from whatever threatens her.”

  “You speak reasonably for a member of your race,” Agny said, “and you’re right. For Elina’s sake, and for the memory of Yaraella, my sisters and I must act. But it will take time to gather them here.” She stood up. “You may remain here under the protection of Reina until the ritual is ready. She will teach Ilvani her part in it.”

  “And she’ll be keeping an eye on the rest of us to make sure we don’t do anything mean,” Skagi said with a chuckle.

  “We won’t,” Cree said, “as long as your warriors keep their weapons sheathed as well.”

  “The berserkers of the Snow Cat l
odge will watch,” Agny said, “nothing more, unless I order it.”

  “What about this?” Ilvani said. She gestured to the child still attached to her. “It’s not safe around me. I want it to be gone.”

  Agny took up a stool from the corner of the room, picked Elina up, and sat her upon it. “Elina, you know that this woman is not your mother. She’s not Yaraella.”

  The little girl looked from Ilvani to the masked woman. Reluctantly, she nodded.

  “That’s right. Even though she might feel the same, she’s not like us. You must let her be. Do you understand?”

  Another nod.

  “Good girl. Wait here for me, please.”

  Agny plucked the girl off the stool and placed her before the fire. She led Ashok, Ilvani, and the brothers out into the cold night air. The guards dispersed at her word, but Reina and the other witch, Sree, remained.

  “See to their needs, Reina,” Agny said. She laid her hand on Sree’s arm. The witch stared at Ilvani as if she were some sort of demon. “Come, Sister, we must speak.”

  “Is it true?” Sree whispered the question to Agny, but Ashok heard her. “Is Yaraella connected to the shadar-kai witch?”

  “She is,” Agny said, “and it seems I was wrong. These soulless ones may hold the key to saving hers.”

  That night they slept in Reina’s home. Restless, Ashok woke many times in the night, and he, Skagi, and Cree took turns on watch, even though the healer—ethran, they called her—assured them it was unnecessary.

  Near dawn, Ashok sat at a table near the fire. He heard Skagi and Cree stir and rise, but Ilvani slept on. She’d had no nightmares that Ashok could tell, but she’d lain awake a long time, silently staring at the ceiling. Ashok didn’t speak to her. He didn’t want to disturb her, but he would have given much to know her thoughts. Was she afraid of the ritual? Ashok couldn’t blame her. Their ignorance of the witches and their magic assured they’d be walking into the ritual blind, trusting only in Agny’s word to protect them.