by K.N. Lee
“Have a care, missus,” Talus warned as he focused on controlling his horse.
Watching Tom’s stiff back as he left her behind, Gilly released her tight hold on the horse’s mane and settled against Talus in disappointment. She shouldn’t take her bad temper out on his horse.
Tom’s rigid posture, his silence, and the speed with which he headed off all spoke of anger. No, not anger. His expression was similar to Marton’s when Anna flirted with other men. Could Tom be jealous? But that was too silly. And amazing if true!
She had always envied Anna when Marton appeared jealous. This suggested Tom cared enough to be upset by Talus showering his attention on her.
Deliciously warm happiness infused Gilly and on impulse, she gave Talus a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.”
“What for?” Talus asked, with a surprised chuckle.
“For showing me that Tom cares for me.”
He glanced from her to Tom who had now dismounted and was glaring at them as he brushed down his horse.
Talus’s grin grew wider. “Ah. Since you care how he feels, then it is he who is the lucky one,” he said gallantly.
With a happy smile, Gilly slid off Padion and was about to go toward Tom when she noticed her left hip wasn’t in pain. After being swung up on a horse, twisted around and on dismounting landed hard, she should be in agony. Why wasn’t she?
Then she remembered the magical play she and Anna had engaged in this morning. When they joined their powers, could her sister’s healing touch have fixed Gilly’s twisted hip? The idea was astounding. Why hadn’t she noticed this change?
She took a few steps, conscious of her odd walk, and realized her left hip rose higher than the right more from habit than necessity. As Talus trotted away to join Tom, she purposely took a few steps in the sensual natural way Anna walked. It felt awkward but possible. Instead of going to Tom, Gilly turned her steps to her sister’s side.
When she was beside Anna, Gilly sat cross-legged. She no longer needed to stretch out her left leg. But the words to tell Anna of this miracle clogged in her throat. She wanted to savor this joyful discovery.
She glanced around at all those who were gathering to hear the men’s news from Tibor. No one paid her any attention. As if they hadn’t noticed her walking normally to this spot or sitting down just like them, with both legs crossed.
Tears of happiness gathered. Her friends and family had not noticed she no longer limped. Because they didn’t see her as Gimpy Gilly? Her heart swelled with pleasure at the thought.
They just see me.
Marton called out to Tom and Talus. “Hurry up!” Once they approached, he said to Ned, “We’re all here. Tell us what you discovered and don’t leave out a detail. Did you find the secret entryway?”
“Yes, indeed, sir,” Ned replied, “exactly where Hagan said it would be, hidden behind overgrowth. It blends into the shadows so well, if I hadn’t explicit instructions, I would never have seen it. The gate was rusted but my key worked.”
Talus strolled toward Gilly but Tom rushed ahead and shoved him aside before planting himself beside her. Gilly’s heart warmed at his possessing hold on her hand. She raised their clasped fingers and kissed his knuckles. His eyes lighted up until Marton cleared his throat and speared Talus with a pointed glance waving him to sit.
Once a few of the men made room, the King’s Warrior sat down and the discussion began.
“Was my mother there?” Anna asked, looking anxious.
Gilly held her breath. Please let them be alive!
“No, they were not among the guild members and I was glad.” Tom’s hold on Gilly tightened. “They must thankfully be housed elsewhere.”
“What we found was worse than anything I ever imagined,” Ned said. “Hagan was right. Many of those magical guild members need to be put out of their misery. The few that can be saved will need all of our help to carry them out of those horror chambers. The three of us could do little. This will require all of us to work together.”
Gilly’s heart sank at the news. Beside her, Anna was shaking and Marton pulled her close, their children huddled between them.
“We talked over what we needed to do and decided to check at the harbor before returning to camp,” Ned said. “One of Master Hagan’s contacts there owns a vessel.”
“Why do we need a vessel?” Gilly asked.
“For the prisoners,” Anna said. “If they are as ill as Ned suggests, we will need a way to transport them out of Tibor. Taking them by road would slow us down and get them captured again.”
“Exactly, Mistress,” Ned said, nodding his head. “Since we are not storming the castle, and this is a straight rescue mission, we need an escape route. And we have one. We’ve arranged for a vessel to be on standby to take us to the coastal city of Emba come tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow?” Gilly asked, in alarm. “So soon?”
“That means our rescue must happen tonight,” Tom said. “Just as well. I’m not sure what’s keeping those prisoners alive. Likely Tamarisk’s magic, but the sooner we get them out of there, the better.”
Gilly let this alarming news sink in and then asked something that had never crossed her mind. “How are we to pay for passage?”
“The citizens of Perm authorized me to promise any sum needed to save the imprisoned guild members,” Ned said. “Saving them was Hagan’s dearest wish and they want to honor him with this gift.”
Gilly nodded her thanks, grateful to Hagan once again. He might have upset her the whole time she had known him but he had also come to her rescue when the horsemen found her in Perm.
The discussion veered toward plans on how the group should travel through Tibor without raising alarms. After a great deal of discussion, it was decided they should go after dark and in groups of no more than three to five.
“Best if you and Anna stay here,” Tom said.
“No!” Both Anna and Gilly answered in tandem. Glancing at each other they nodded, in perfect agreement.
“If the guild sorcerers are in as bad a shape as you say,” Anna said, “my healing ability will be needed to get those we can help into a fit state to travel.”
“And I can counter any wards set in place,” Gilly said.
“We cannot take the children into a place like that,” Marton said.
“You can bring them to the vessel and meet us there,” Anna said.
He refused point blank. “I’m not allowing you to go to this unholy castle dungeon without me.”
In the end though, he reluctantly agreed Skye and Bevan’s safety must be his top priority.
The discussion wound down soon after. They had a couple of hours left before twilight. Wanting to give Anna and Marton time alone, Gilly whispered to Tom that she wanted to take Bevan and Skye to the clearing in the woods where he had taught her how to shoot her crossbow.
“Alone,” she added, when he offered to come. “I need to teach them a magical trick or two while we’re all away. Will you keep Marton away from us? He won’t like me teaching his children magic.”
He nodded but then pulled her close and kissed her soundly on her lips. Right there in front of everyone. As she pulled away, breathless, he whispered, “That’s so everyone here knows you belong with me now.”
By everyone, he no doubt meant Talus. Gilly stood on shaky legs. If she could have her way, she would have preferred to take Tom into the woods to have her way with him.
Instead she went to collect Bevan and Skye. If they were leaving in a few hours, she had to teach the children a way to defend themselves and their father. Anna gave her nod of consent and Gilly suspected it was for more than her proposed walk with her children. Marton’s gaze flicked from Gilly to Tom. His approving grin said that for once Gilly had done something right in his eyes. By the time she reached the woods, her cheeks were still hot from blushing.
She began the lesson with a simple distress call. Skye enacted it easily, sending a clear signal. Gilly smiled cherishing the dis
tinctive voice of her niece inside her head. Bevan’s call remained as silent as he had once been with his words.
With a sigh of disappointment, Gilly turned to the next spell. How to build a protection barrier. Skye could erect the barrier, but she could not seem to hold it.
On the girl’s tenth try, while Bevan watched with wide curious eyes, the barrier wavered. Gilly instinctively reached to strengthen it, but then held back. The girl would not have help when the time came to use it. So propping her now wouldn’t do any good. On Skye’s next try, as the spell began to collapse again, Bevan raised his arms and the barrier shot straight into the sky.
Aunt and niece watched, heads tilted up and mouths open, as shimmering light reached for the heavens in a circle around them. It took a lot of coaxing to convince Bevan to lower the shield and let them all out again. When he finally complied, she realized her nephew might one day be as powerful a sorcerer as his grandfather had been.
“Better not tell your papa about our practice,” Gilly suggested. The blacksmith had enough to contend with, realizing his wife was a powerful sorceress who was about to go into danger without him by her side. This news of his children could wait a day or two.
As they reached the edge of the clearing, Gilly spotted Jarrod leaning casually against a tree, watching her. Excited, she nodded to him and bent to take Bevan’s and Skye’s hands. “I want you two to go back to the campsite without me. Bevan, please tell your mama I’ll be back shortly and not to worry. And Skye, please tell Tom that he holds the key to my heart and always will. Will you both do that for me?”
They nodded and raced away, hand in hand. Then Bevan turned back and shouted, “Bye Jarrod.”
“That boy is gifted,” Jarrod said from behind her.
“Yes, more than I ever imagined.” Gilly studied the Chief Councilor of Erov in silence as they strolled back to the woods. “Thank you for coming.” She took a seat on a log and sensed waves of worry emanating from Jarrod though she couldn’t identify the cause. He wanted to talk to her but held back.
“What was your impression of the black cloud?” he finally asked and sat beside her.
“That it’s filled with tortured souls. Is there nothing you can do to help them?”
“An atrocious aberration of the Light keeps them trapped. But my people are simply recorders of history, Gilly. It is neither our place or within our ability to alter the course of events. We can, if we are careful, direct the right people to the right places to affect a desired outcome.”
“Is that what you’re doing with me?”
He nodded. “Light has been decreed wicked in the land of Ryca. Yet, only Light can save us all now.”
“All? I thought it was only those lost souls trapped in the dungeon and my family who were in danger.”
“The black cloud’s hunger is unending. It reaches its dark tentacles toward the city itself. Increased disease, famine and plague are but the beginning signs of what ails Tibor and will soon consume the rest of Ryca if that cloud is not annihilated.”
Gilly shuddered. “All I plan to do is to release those trapped in Tibor’s dungeons. Will that end the cloud’s spread?”
“The darkness must be banished from our land.” Jarrod’s tone left no room for argument. “The man who controls the cloud must likewise be vanquished. As Defender of the Light, it is your responsibility to right the wrong done to the Light.”
“How can you expect me to banish Tamarisk? The last time we met, he almost killed me.” She couldn’t believe she’d said the words. It made it feel so real. “Why?”
“Do you mean why destroy Tamarisk?”
She shook her head. “Why did Uncle Ywen kill my father?”
Jarrod nodded. “Wise child.” He opened his arms and Falcon’s Tomb appeared there.
Gilly sat stunned at such casual use of magic.
He flipped open the book and leafed through pages. After a few moments of rapid paper shuffling, he found the annotation he wanted and turned the book toward Gilly. When she remained where she was he tapped the page impatiently.
Gilly slowly inched over until she was right beside him. Her eyes scanned the page, reading the words as if in a dream. Even as darkness fell, the words glowed.
Behold here the Tale of Tarrius Ryca. King Tarrius, a powerful sorcerer, was the first King of Ryca.
“This is the story of my ancestors.” Gilly said.
“Yes. Read on.”
The story spoke of a betrayal by the king’s brother who brought about Tarrius and his entire family’s demise.
Before Tarrius passed away, he placed a curse on his brother’s descendants. Not one in that family line would wield Light as powerfully as Tarrius could. With each descendant the ability to wield Light would be diminished until the day a set of twin princes were born. The elder will be stripped of the Light that made Tarrius the greatest king of all. The younger will be born with the key to resurrect the Light lost in preceding generations and break the curse set upon the family. To release the confined Light, the gifted and cursed must merge.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “If father and Ywen are these brother princes, why did Ywen kill my father? This was the family’s one chance to regain the magic lost by the curse.”
“Discover that, and you will know how to vanquish the black cloud,” Jarrod said.
“No,” Gilly jumped up and faced Jarrod. “You are not going to be cryptic about this. You can’t expect me to go blindly into that castle with no idea of how to accomplish all you want me to do. I need your help.”
“You were planning to do this before I arrived.”
How could he be so calm? “When I planned was to rescue my family and those poor lost souls and leave.” Jarrod did not respond but looked vastly interested. “I had no intention of going against Tamarisk or Ywen. In fact, I had every intention of avoiding them.”
Jarrod was now rapidly writing in his book.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He glanced up before returning his attention to his work. “I knew your plans, but not your intentions. This is good. The history of this journey wouldn’t be complete without both the intent and action properly recorded.”
“Jarrod!”
“Yes?”
“This is my life, not a story.”
“This is history in the making, Gilly.” A frown appeared between his dark brows. “You understand why it must be recorded?”
“Well, Chief Councilor, why tarry?” she asked. “You’ve accomplished your goal to record all pertinent points. Why waste time helping me to defeat my uncle, vanquish Tamarisk, and save the world as long as you’ve obtained your research.”
“Who are you talking to?” Anna came out of the bushes.
Gilly swung around and then back to the log where Jarrod had been sitting. It was empty but for a single sheet of paper resting there. She picked it up. It was the legend of King Tarrius.
“What’s that you have?” Anna asked coming closer.
Gilly folded the page and sighed. “A new intent.”
“Bevan said Jarrod was here. Was he really?”
Gilly nodded. “And he has plans we must discuss.”
“Such as?”
“He believes Tamarisk’s twisting of Light to his favor is a threat to all of Ryca. If we don’t stop him, that black cloud will consume all who live and breathe on this land.”
Anna sat abruptly on the log. Gilly joined her. Her mind was starved of ideas.
“What can we do about it?” Anna asked.
Gilly shrugged and gave her the paper Jarrod had left. “He said this holds the key to Tamarisk’s downfall. If it does, it is beyond me. What do you make of it?”
Anna did a quick read. “Keegan and Ywen were twins?”
She nodded.
“But our father is dead. He and Ywen can no longer join to release this ‘gift.’ Without that, I don’t see how we can defeat Tamarisk.”
Gilly was unprepared to face Tamarisk,
let alone her uncle, the man who had killed her father and hunted her entire family for years. Even with Anna’s added powers, she was no match for them.
What distressed her most was the thought of destroying those souls in the cloud. How could she bring herself to end the existence of so many? The same ones she’d planned to rescue?
Gilly retrieved the sheet from Anna and tucked it folded inside her clothing. “I think it best we stick with our original plan. Once Mam is safe, perhaps she can help us find a way to handle Ywen, Tamarisk and those condemned souls we can’t rescue.”
Chapter 16
Tibor lay with its feet submerged in the shores of the sea of Tver. At the top of a hill the king’s castle had been erected to oversee the entire city.
Gilly, Anna, Tom and Ned were the first to enter the city. The next group would be a quarter hour behind them. And then the next, and the one after that. Seven in all. Hoping to be less conspicuous, they left their horses behind in the woods.
She’d never been to a place this large or with such strange habits. All the streets they’d trekked through were illuminated with torches and lanterns at regular intervals. For what purpose would a city need such illumination kept up all night long?
Her party hoped to sneak through to the castle and certainly didn’t need anyone noticing their passage. At the center of town, a hundred steps led up to twin monuments that reached to the sky. Large ferocious stone beasts with unfurled wings guarded the entrance to those two buildings. She’d never seen that kind of an animal. Did it even exist or had they been designed from someone’s fevered nightmares? Now she thought on it, all the lighted main streets led up to these two central towers which were situated halfway between the city and the castle.
With a sigh she followed her sister and friends, putting Tibor and its peculiarities out of her mind. Perhaps on her next visit to this fascinating place, she could think about learning more. Her only concern tonight was gaining access to the dungeons. Still, as they continued their journey, she couldn’t help glancing at the night sky half-expecting something with leathery wings to swoop down.