Bertran put a hand on her shoulder. “Marilee. I’ve been thinking. I don’t think we—”
She shrugged off the hand. A sheepish Bertran looked at Cabe.
The wizard frowned. Marilee let out a yelp and dropped the staff, which in her mind had grown as hot as a red poker. Cabe had actually not burned her, but simply let her feel the illusion of intense heat.
He gestured and the staff came to his hand. The woman gritted her teeth and grabbed for an empty area by her waist where presumably she usually kept a knife. Then, her expression turned to one of intense exhaustion.
“I’ve imagined . . . I’ve thought of taking you down most of my life,” she murmured.
“Not that it’ll matter to you, but every night I relive the destruction of Mito Pica. I lost someone very close to me here.” As Cabe said this, he felt some more guilt. The statement was and was not true, if what he imagined was in part the reason for this evening’s events.
Marilee eyed him. “Didn’t know that.”
Before the conversation could continue on into an area uncomfortable for Cabe, a woman’s sobbing echoed through the forest. The wizard noticed that it startled Bertran and him more than it did Marilee. “You’ve heard that before?”
“I’ve seen her, too—there!” She pointed past his left shoulder.
Quickly looking, Cabe swore. The glowing, vaguely-defined shape of the gowned woman he had also seen earlier drifted among the trees. While the rich, black hair still obscured her features, her stance indicated some dire need.
But something else confused him. If what he believed was true, then he would have expected her to be heading the same direction that he had intended. Instead, she was moving toward the actual ruins of the city.
Despite that contradiction, Cabe chose to pursue the apparition. The vision headed toward what was left of the city wall. Beyond the wall, the silhouettes of several jagged shells that had once been towering buildings seemed to hungrily await Cabe’s long-overdue return. Marilee’s overriding hatred for him despite the rescue had stirred up his own guilt more than ever. Every fragment of Mito Pica still standing looked to him like the outline of a tombstone.
He expected her to walk through the wall, but instead she turned and began to hurry along its length. The mage picked up his own pace. His curiosity was only matched by his frustration. Despite his best efforts, he could never make out her face. Her hair continued to drape over whatever features should have been visible, as if the long tresses had a life and purpose of their own.
At what had once been one of the great gates but was now a mangle of rusted, scorched metal and shattered stone, the apparition entered Mito Pica. As Cabe attempted to follow, the branches of the few remaining trees ahead shifted in an attempt to block his path.
Behind him, Marilee swore. Cabe knew that she and Bertran had followed him, but since they no longer represented a threat to his safety, he had deemed that they were better off near him.
“We’re safe for the moment,” he whispered. “Stay close to me and nothing will happen.”
“But you saw what the trees did to the drakes!” she whispered back.
“That’s because they were drakes.” Cabe frowned. He wanted to go after the spirit, but also wondered why the force he suspected behind all this would stop him. Was not the apparition part of his message, a message possibly for Cabe himself?
A woman’s scream echoed from the ruins ahead.
Despite aware that the trees probably sought to keep him back for good reason, Cabe gestured. A wind thrust the branches aside, allowing the trio to continue through into the city.
There was no hint of animal life in the darkened ruins, not even the small vermin one would have expected. The areas above were devoid of birds, the ground of any small, scurrying forms. There should have been some inhabitants, but the wizard even noted an absence of insect sounds.
“We shouldn’t be in this place,” Bertran rasped. “We shouldn’t disturb the dead . . . ”
They appear very disturbed already, Cabe thought sourly. Or at least one in particular, if I’m correct.
Cabe was fairly certain as to the identity of the force ultimately responsible here and knew that he should have gone directly to the other’s last resting place, but the female vision continued to demand the mage’s attention. There had to be a particular reason for her materializing again and again.
There came renewed sobbing. Cabe pushed his way through two centuries of vegetation-overgrown rubble, moving deeper into the city. More than once, the mage thought that he would finally catch up, but the gowned woman always remained just far enough ahead.
And still he could not see her face.
Bertran swore as he stumbled over an unstable piece of stonework. Cabe looked back at the pair. “I shouldn’t have let you follow me. I never thought to journey this far into the city. If you retrace our steps, you should be all right.”
Marilee shook her head. “I need to find out about her, too. I saw her. I want to know who she was, why she’s in more torment than the others. What is she and why we can see her . . . ”
Now the wizard understood why she followed so docilely. Hinted at was that the woman was actually hoping to find other spirits that might be active. Cabe had suspected the reason, but now had his verification. “You want to find your parents.”
For a brief moment, Marilee looked much younger, much less assured. Cabe saw the child left alone after the city’s tragic fall.
“I know that sounds mad,” she finally answered. “But I thought with everything so alive this time, maybe there was something going on. Maybe this ghost knew about others . . . ” Her expression revealed how foolish that notion now seemed even to her.
“I’m sorry—” the wizard began.
Bertran interjected himself between them. “There she is! By the fallen inn!”
Even as they looked, the apparition moved on again. She continued to seem to have a reason in her journey. She headed toward the tilted remains of a roofless house, then suddenly veered toward the right down a narrow stone avenue.
Cabe’s gaze narrowed. In the dim light of the moon, he could see the once fine iron fence, parts of which still stood tall. Beyond that fence, some distance away, a turreted estate house—one turret collapsed in—beckoned.
The wizard searched his memory for who this might belong to, but failed to find an answer. He watched as the ghost flitted through the wreckage and headed toward the crumbling edifice.
But as Cabe once more followed, Bertran growled under his breath. The mage turned to see the big man staring wide-eyed at their destination.
Bertran took hold of Marilee’s arm. This time, he would not let her pull away. “Marilee. You ain’t going in there . . . ”
She was as confused as Cabe. “Why, Bertran?”
“That there’s Vale.”
VII
The name meant nothing to the wizard, but Marilee swallowed hard. “I never saw it. Only heard it. That’s his place?”
“Aye, and if there’s ghosts that mean us ill, the outcast will be one!”
“Who is the ‘outcast’?” Cabe asked, simultaneously probing the estate grounds.
Bertran nervously shrugged. “My pa, he only just warned me never to go too near Vale. He said the outcast might steal me away!”
Marilee visibly shivered. Cabe, who thus far sensed nothing, wondered what connection this had to the phantasm. He also cursed himself for allowing this pair to follow him rather than do as he should have and first seen them safely to their companions.
Shrieks assailed them again. The ruins around the trio burst into flame . . . or rather, once more, the memory of flame. Shadows flitted here and there that the wizard decided represented the fleeing populace. His guilt mixed with his growing curiosity. Why were the dead of Mito Pica so violently awake? They had never been like this in previous visits.
“There’s light in there!”
Following Marilee’s astounded gaze, Cabe saw tha
t illumination did indeed fill the Vale house. He wondered at that name, nothing about the estate showing much that would match the descriptive title. While clearly there had once been many trees, that was as close to a vale as an estate within Mito Pica could manage. The landscape otherwise had no similarity, the only other features a set of crumbling statues the outlines of which made Cabe believe they had once represented various forest creatures.
Without warning, Marilee plunged ahead. Bertran grabbed at her, but too late. Cabe decided that a spell might not be the best thing for everyone in such a place—not unless absolutely necessary—and hurried after.
He managed to seize her arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I heard her! She called to me!” The woman looked past him to the house. “Momma!”
Cabe saw that he had let things go too far. “Bertran! Take her with you! I’ll provide—”
But as he spoke, Bertran ran past him. “Pa!”
Marilee slipped free. Now entirely heedless of their own prior concerns, she and her companion hurried on toward the house.
Cabe started a spell intended to send the two far away, but hesitated. Instead, he grimly pursued them. Somehow, the mage was certain that this revolved around him. One way or another, this force wanted Cabe to come to it.
Alive or dead, I’ll make you regret that if any harm comes to those two, he warned the mysterious power.
Make way for the Lady Asrilla! a ghostly voice abruptly cried in his head.
Simultaneously, an ethereal carriage drawn by six white and clearly transparent horses rushed along the crumbled street. The speeding wheels paid no mind to the stone and other rubble filling the street. The rounded carriage raced passed a gaping Cabe, who caught a glimpse of a crest the center of which was a wyvern wielding a lance. The crest meant nothing to the wizard, but the name, although one he had not heard in almost two decades, struck him to the core.
Lady Asrilla. Of Mito Pica.
His grandmother.
Cabe had never known her, for she had died giving birth to her second son, his father. With Mito Pica destroyed, he had never bothered to seek that part of his family. He had assumed that they had perished with the rest.
But whether they had or not, Cabe knew that his grandmother had died long before, which made this phantom coach a very, very strange specter.
He wanted desperately to follow this new trail, but Marilee and Bertran were almost at the house already and Cabe believed that if he let them go alone they were at far more risk. If he had to trade his life for theirs, then so be it.
But he would do so fighting all the way.
No longer willing to hold back, Cabe transported himself to the front entrance just before the pair reached it. Marilee and Bertran paused.
“Your loved ones are not within,” he bluntly told them. “You are bespelled.”
From Marilee, he saw some understanding. Bertran, however, started forward again.
She blocked his way. “Bertran!”
He gave her a befuddled look. “Pa?”
“Stay here,” Cabe ordered. He drew an arc. A transparent golden shell formed around them.
That done, the wizard created another glowing sphere, then stepped through into what had once been a wide front hall. Cabe peered left and right, but only saw more evidence of the great house’s collapse. He moved deeper into the structure, finally entering areas where there still remained something of a ceiling.
A tattered tapestry fluttered on a far wall. Cabe would not have even noticed it save that in the light of the sphere he saw that just enough of the image remained to reveal a landscape.
A vale.
He made his way to the tapestry. For some reason, the landscape looked familiar even though the wizard was certain that he had never been to such a place.
The sobbing began anew.
Cabe wended his way out of the room, then hurried after the sound. At the far end of the hall, near where a huge double staircase had collapsed in on itself, the female figure slowly climbed into the air.
The wizard took another step . . . and the floor gave way.
It happened so quickly that he barely had time to shield his landing much less even stop his fall. Cabe hit hard, but not enough to do more than briefly knock the breath out of him. Even then, he was ready for the expected attack.
But nothing happened. Cabe summoned the sphere to him, possibly casting the first light on this chamber in decades.
The wall bore the sign of the vale, the image carved by some very skilled artisan. It stretched across the stone wall, but where it once would have been the focal point of the chamber, now what had burst through the wall itself more than stole that role away.
The roots were immense . . . and black even in the sphere’s glow. Cabe could have sworn that they briefly shifted when first the illumination fell upon them. He waited, but when they did not move again, he turned to study the rest of his surroundings.
The dark-haired woman stood watching him.
He gasped, but not merely because she was there. As surprising as the roots had been, they were less shocking to him than the fact that the woman’s feature were now visible to him. More to the point, that her eyes were visible to him.
Crystalline eyes that glittered even in the least light.
Cabe had seen eyes like those before. They were the eyes of a Vraad, the ancient race of sorcerers from whom all humans were descended. Very few knew of them or that the only known survivor—if he could be called such—was the cursed warlock called Shade.
But father, she began, talking to the air. he still thinks me only his servant . . . a servant fond of him, but nothing more. I can prove his duplicity to Uncle and then he can convince the Dragon Hunter! Nathan will listen to Uncle!
The wizard stood at a loss. First, here was a phantom bearing the mark of the Vraad, but speaking of another time . . . a time when Cabe’s grandfather Nathan had lived.
Still speaking to some silent, unseen memory, she vehemently shook her head and added, No! Whatever I felt for him doesn’t matter! He’ll bring everything down on us! The Kings already suspect you might not be as loyal as you seem. If they knew that you and Uncle did still speak—
There came a shifting behind Cabe. He whirled—
This time, there was no question about the roots moving.
The sobbing renewed. Feeling as if he were in the middle of a tug of war, Cabe looked back at the spirit.
Now, she was swollen with child.
If it was possible, the dark-haired woman was even more pale than before. She lay on some cot or low bed that the mage could not see, one arm reaching out and the other holding her belly. In place of the golden dress, the ghost now wore a simple ivory birthing gown, the color of which only served to make her look even closer to death’s door.
Please . . . please keep him alive! I . . . I beg you . . . you have the power . . . the power, Nathan! Forget me . . . forget his father . . . forget that thing I still fight in my head . . . save my . . . save my son . . .
Cabe Bedlam forgot about ghosts, forgot about huge roots, forgot about all else. He knew exactly what was playing out here. This was a significant birth, one at the end of the ill-fated Turning War. In its way, it would decide the outcome for two more centuries of Dragon King rule . . . stunted rule, but still rule.
As with Mito Pica, the blame fell upon him. The impending birth hinted at before him was the wizard’s own.
And this woman . . . this Vraad . . . was evidently his mother.
It was at that moment that he was struck hard from behind. As Cabe fell to the floor, he heard the unmistakable hiss of a drake.
Barely conscious, Cabe tried to push himself up . . . and as he did, he looked directly into the face of his mother.
The ghost smiled with sinister satisfaction, a smile most definitely aimed at Cabe.
I’ve waited so long . . . she murmured in his head. And now I have you . . . my darling son . . .
VIII<
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Bertran pounded against the shell. “It won’t break! I can’t break it! Blasted wizards!”
He received only silence from behind him. While he considered himself a fairly adaptable man, Bertran was always glad to have Marilee’s quick wits at his side. She usually had a plan or could come up with one on the spot.
“What do you think we should do?” he finally asked. Forgotten was the enchantment that had made him think his long dead father had called to him. Once more, he only saw how manipulating a wizard could be.
Hearing nothing from her, he turned. “Marilee, are you—”
Bertran found himself alone.
Cabe never completely blacked out, but neither did he remain conscious enough for several precious seconds to know what was happening. All he could think was that the ghost of his mother was trying to kill him . . . or worse. Yet, he could not fathom why.
There also remained a niggling doubt. He missed some vital clue, some truth. There had to be more than what appeared on the surface. He had lived too long to not have learned to never take anything at face value, not even ghosts.
Slowly, he regained his senses . . . and only then discovered that he was bound tightly by the huge roots. Cabe immediately concentrated—
The roots tightened, cutting off his air and threatening to break his bones.
The moment he ceased his efforts, the roots loosened just enough to let him breathe. Cabe found no relief in the fact that he had not been slain outright; that meant that his captor had other intentions for him.
A low hiss from his far right suddenly warned him that he was not alone. The sphere he had cast remained floating a few feet above the center of the chamber, giving the wizard sufficient light. The vines granted him the luxury of shifting his head just enough to see the iron drake standing in the shadowed corner. The drake stood utterly still and if not for his low, steady breathing, might have seemed dead.
If not dead, he was certainly under control of the same force keeping Cabe a prisoner. The drake provided it with some actual hands. That he had gotten near enough to the spellcaster to hit him had to be due to the obviously weakening but still somewhat potent power of the Aramite device.
Legends of the Dragonrealm: Volume 04 Page 85