The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

  “When you return, meet us at my room, we’ll plan then,” Elon said.

  He clasped her arm in sympathy, knowing how difficult the task was and saw the gratitude in her eyes.

  He and Colath had their own duties before they could rest, to thank the Elves that had come on their behalf and to see to the Healing as necessary. By some miracle, they’d lost none of their own, although some had taken wounds.

  It was late in the day when they finally rejoined in Elon’s rooms.

  Food and drink had been laid out on one table, a map spread on another.

  Ailith collapsed in a chair by that table, too tired to make more effort.

  “How will you go?” Elon asked her, a map stretched out before him as he leaned on the table.

  Letting her head loll across the back of the chair, Ailith looked at his familiar stern face and then at the map.

  “East to West as we can, in an arc, moving as fast as we dare. I don’t know that country well although I’ve visited most at one time or another. I don’t want to get caught in the High North once the snows come. Tolan, at least, has done us a favor with that, moving his plans here up, but it will still be some weeks to cross.”

  “I know,” Jareth groaned.

  She raised an eyebrow, amused, too weary to do more.

  It was such an Elven gesture, Elon thought.

  “He’s been there before,” Colath explained.

  “Ah. Well, then,” she said, with a small smile and a wave of her hand, “he can lead the way this time. I was growing weary of it.”

  Looking at the map, weighing distances, Elon nodded. “With luck, we should be able to meet you here, at Raintree, once we finish with the High King. We’ll know by then what we need to do.”

  He was quiet a moment. He still had misgivings.

  Ailith said, “We’ll be fine, Elon. We’ll keep to good roads and I’ll keep an eye out. You have to go into the heartlands, past Riverford and Tolan again.”

  “Not so close,” he said, faintly amused.

  “Any close is too close to Tolan,” she said, her tone wry but he saw the twist of real concern in her eyes. “And his trackers.”

  “We’ll be fine, Ailith,” he echoed.

  She smiled a little again although her heart ached. “I’ll stop worrying if you do.”

  “Since that’s not possible, we’ll have to agree to worry about each other.”

  “Better to worry than not,” she said, with a sigh. “Westin will supply us, I’ve no doubt of that. For the rest, I suppose we have only to do it.”

  “Tomorrow.” Elon looked around at all of them. It couldn’t be avoided. “Go. Rest. Tomorrow comes soon enough.”

  One by one they left, Ailith and Colath leaving last, both giving him one last glance before they left him alone with his thoughts.

  He paced, trying to find another way around this plan but he couldn’t.

  What did Tolan plan now? And that dark Other Ailith had seen? Their plans had to have changed. Raven’s Nest was no threat to them any more, not in its condition. Westin was no warrior but Aranoc had been, even as old as he was. Now he was gone and Raven’s Nest pummeled. They had no fear there anymore.

  He didn’t know what they would plan next.

  It remained to him to convince Daran High King to put more of his army in the north. If he could. What they had was alarming but slight. Was it enough?

  Even the long-awaited and desired bath didn’t soothe him. Afterward, he paced restlessly, then finally and resolutely put it behind him. There was nothing more he could do.

  He stretched out on his bed and tried to rest.

  A bath had soothed Ailith’s hurts and washed most of the blood away. Some of it had undoubtedly been Gwillim’s. Most of it, no doubt. When he’d died, much of it had gushed over her. She mourned him, mourned the loss of him, his bright banter, his teasing. Her last tie to Riverford.

  In only one way was she grateful, that if her father turned Riverford traitor, Gwillim, who loved that country as much as she and her father had, hadn’t lived to see it.

  As hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep from wishing that tomorrow wouldn’t come so soon.

  Parting from Elon, parting from Colath, would be hard. In a short time she’d become much used to their company. More than that, she was bound to them in ways she was only beginning to understand.

  Doing the forms.

  That joining, that sharing, the connection between them. And more, but she couldn’t think on that at all. Especially not if they were parting on the morrow. It was only for a time, a matter of some weeks, a month. Not so long.

  It seemed to stretch before her endlessly.

  She took to her bed determined not to think about it.

  Tomorrow would come soon enough.

  Hours of fighting, a night and most of a day of hard riding. An arrow in her back. Blood loss. Weariness weighed on her heavily. That moment of connection with Colath and then Elon joining them from so far.

  She’d felt him, his calm presence, across that distance. Perhaps she still would. If need be, she’d know where they were from the stars in her mind. She knew which stars they were, he and Colath, so she could follow them in her heart if she couldn’t in body and know how they fared. There was that.

  It was small consolation.

  Exhaustion took its toll and dragged her down to sleep.

  Into darkness.

  To dreams.

  She was too drained to fight.

  Flickering firelight on the damp stone walls, walls that dripped blood as Gwillim’s blood had drenched her today. Great gouts of it. She could feel the warmth of it, as if it were freshly spilled, as her fingers dragged across it. The stench and coppery reek of it filled her nose. Fear, a trickle at first and then a flood, seeped through her veins.

  The pull was more intense. Her dread intensified as well.

  Now she struggled, tried to fight that relentless pull as the iron door neared. Firelight danced over the doorway. She wanted to weep.

  Tolan’s voice. Enraged, furious, it bounced off the walls, echoed down the damp tunnels. That sing-song cadence sounded all the more mad.

  “They will pay for this, they will pay for this. They will all pay for this. I will have them, I will. That Elf. He found a way. He’ll pay, he will pay. He will. But first, little Ailith, you will.”

  She was dragged in the door. The trackers were there and Tolan.

  And the Door. That Other Door. The Door to the South.

  Her breath came short, her heart pounded wildly.

  The Door was empty. That dark and terrible figure didn’t fill it. For how long?

  Her swords. They weren’t there and wouldn’t come.

  What had been a trickle of fear through her veins became a flood as she faced Tolan alone.

  In horror, she watched his face melt, reform, only to melt and twist again. He was furious as he paced, his eyes glittered madly as they shifted to become the cold, hard, slit-pupiled gaze of a snake.

  “You must be punished, oh yes indeed. I know the part you played in this, I do. Yes, I do,” he said, that sing-song voice back.

  The terror she pushed back, she made her face as impassive as Elon’s, as Colath’s, could be, as still as her Elven blood would allow.

  “Oh, little Ailith, yes you must be punished. Yes, you must. You must pay. Someday soon I’ll have you in my hands but I can’t wait that long. Oh, no. Somebody must pay, somebody must pay for my plans, for the blood I’ve lost.”

  Horrified, she understood, now.

  Raven’s Nest hadn’t been so much about protecting his back, it had been intended as a blood-bath. A blood-bath for Tolan. She remembered what Talesin had said, about blood wizards. A raising of power.

  She willed her hands to stop shaking but the Door…

  The Door to the South was open.

  Terror flooded her.

  “Oh yes, someone must pay and I can’t wait, I can’t. I promised you a thing and I shall ke
ep that promise. For each hour of each day you make me delay they will suffer.”

  The doors opened, those other doors, the iron ones in the walls. Desperately, she closed her eyes against the nightmare images they revealed. Those doors opened and shut, opened and shut, randomly, offering glimpses of horror, of suffering. Pain and blood, beloved faces.

  She refused to look, denied it. They flashed at her from the corners of her sight but she wouldn’t hold them.

  That didn’t stop the pain, the heartache.

  “I know now who it is you follow. For that one I have something special in mind. Oh for that one I do. For that Elon, that Elf, that oh so wise Elf. Oh yes for him I have something special in mind. Oh yes. He shall pay, he shall pay. He shall pay the longest. Yes he shall. I’ll bring him to his knees. There will be pain, oh yes there will be pain.”

  She didn’t need the images, the thought alone was torture enough.

  “One by one I’ll break them and he will watch. And you, oh yes, you. You will watch. He’ll break and he’ll bleed but he’ll see them all go before him. And you, little Ailith and you. Again and again, broken and bleeding. He’ll watch them break and he’ll watch them bleed. Each of them, Jalila, Jareth. Colath, we can’t forget him, Elon’s true-friend. Especially him. But most especially, Elon. They will break and they will bleed and you will break and you will bleed. I will put the soul-eater on you and I will put you before him so he can watch and I can watch as it eats into your soul. Oh yes. Oh yes. Soon. Soon. But not soon enough. I need my blood, I need my pain. I need my vengeance and someone must pay.”

  A Dark figure stood in the Doorway, with Dark eyes that were a greater blackness, a greater darkness and somewhere deep within them was a red spark of even greater madness, of hate and fury. She couldn’t look into those eyes, dared not look or lose her mind.

  Images, the dark sweep of foul creatures pouring from the north, swarming over the walls of homesteads and castles. Screams, cries and bitter laughter rang in her ears. That terrible flood spread down to wash over a city of trees, of clean stone galleries awash in blood. Elven blood, the bodies like pale leaves were scattered across the vale. A trail of Elven people in chains. The flood spread, rushed out of the mouths of Dwarven caves, a dark host with pincers and claws and maws.

  People bowed down, folk in chains.

  And from the South…

  Hands grasped her, held her. A tracker. The others had left. They were going hunting.

  “Do you understand now, little Ailith?” Tolan asked, as he came closer.

  His breath smelled sour and dead.

  NO. She tried for anger but not for rage. He wanted that. He wanted her to reveal herself, to betray herself in blood and death. She wouldn’t.

  She tried not to see the figures in chains, the iron doors that opened and closed, slammed shut and flew open, tried not see the faces she loved so well.

  Tolan smiled, watching.

  NO.

  Not those images, a different one. A clean one.

  Clean and clear and bright with the last golden light of the setting sun. She locked it in her mind. She and Elon and Colath, when they had sparred. In her ears she heard the ringing of their swords, like bells being rung joyfully. She and Elon and Colath. Moving in harmony. The sound echoed within her.

  “You will know what it feels like, the glorious pain,” Tolan said, “what it feels like to have a soul-eater on you. I want you to know what it will feel like. Tell him for me, show him, so he will know it when it comes. On them. On you. On him.”

  Slowly, Tolan stalked toward her and smiled, as the firelight glinted from sharp rows of inward-facing teeth. He reached out a mottled, taloned hand and laid it on her chest.

  The pain was immense. Tearing agony.

  She held onto the memory of the singing of the swords, clung to it, clung to the moment when she knew where she fit. Of that bond forming, as it flowed from her to Elon, to Colath, formed, strengthened and bound her heart and soul.

  Pain ate deep.

  In desperation, in her mind she wrapped that bond around her hand like a life rope and pulled.

  She came awake to find herself on her knees on the cold stone floor, curled around the pain, but free.

  Elon came alert in an instant, his heart thundered, and then he was on his feet and out the door before the knowledge of why struck him. From the hall behind him he heard a door open and knew Colath was only a few steps behind.

  He flung Ailith’s door open.

  Struggling to her feet, Ailith swayed, her arms wrapped around herself against the pain.

  Her eyes met his the moment he opened the door, her face too white, her lips tight.

  But her eyes.

  Agony.

  So much sheer agony in those eyes. It tore at his heart to see her so.

  She reached for him and he went to her. Took her hand and put his arm around her for support.

  Wrenching, tearing agony ripped through her, he could feel her shudder, arch against it.

  Reaching with his Healing, he merged with her, to give her ease.

  A dream, another dream. What had happened? Then the pain hit him, too.

  Colath came in behind him, met their eyes, shut the door and took Ailith’s free hand. He’d never seen her so pale, her eyes seemed huge in her face. Elon’s face showed his strain.

  Such pain, such tearing agony, Elon could feel it wrench her, tear at her.

  There was no blood, not this time. Something else. What had Tolan done? It had to be Tolan.

  He shuddered at the impact of it, felt Colath slide into the merge and recoil instinctively. Their eyes met in stunned horror. He and Colath were taking only a fraction of it and it was terrible. How did she bear this?

  He steeled himself against the pain.

  It moved through her as if something within her that was broken shifted. Her body wrenched and twisted with it, fighting the pain.

  She smiled, painfully, but she did smile to reassure them, although her breath came in short hard pants.

  “I think I grow better at this.”

  That smile. Elon’s heart broke.

  He started to speak but she put her trembling fingers gently to his lips to keep him silent.

  Those steel-blue eyes were eloquent, agonized.

  “I have to say it and quickly before my courage runs out. The Door, Elon, the Door to the South. It was open. He didn’t hold me and he didn’t keep me, though he tried. You, you and Colath, you were my life line. I won. I escaped before he did as much as he wanted. They haven’t changed their plans, it still goes forward. The Dark one, the one with the eyes of darkness, the one with no soul, it’s he who plans this. Raven’s Nest wasn’t all that Tolan told my father. It was supposed to be a blood-bath, a raising of power. We’ve cost him that power. He had to call up his Lord to hold me so long.”

  “He hates us for it. He hates you, Elon. He knows now it’s you who thwarts him. He hates you. He hates me as well, for escaping, for helping, for not giving him what he wants. But he hates you particularly. He wants to punish us both but especially you now. He wants me for my power but he hates you for what we’ve done. For what we’ve taken from him, for what we’ve cost him. He threatened all of us. The same horrible threats, the same terrible images. The trackers are loosed again.”

  There was a haunted look in her eyes. “He’ll strike at Aerilann. He showed that to me. His Lord means to see the Elves and Dwarves in chains. He’ll take the north, the lands of Men. Everyone. He wants to be worshipped. He wants revenge, but for what I don’t know, I couldn’t See that.”

  Elon’s Foresight shimmered. He saw it in his mind’s eye, a dark wave that rushed out of the north and washed through the heartland to drown everything. A tumbling dark wave of borderlands creatures, goblins and trolls, yes, and firbolg, ogres, boggarts and boggins. He could See it himself now. Not mere glimmerings, tantalizing omens but a true Vision. The armies of the kingdoms marched but too late to halt the tide. Treachery. St
andards turned in directions they shouldn’t. Aerilann. The wave washed up against the Veil, darkness blotted it out. Green Lothliann as well. His people stood in chains of iron. The caverns of the Dwarves were empty and echoed. In the south, to the east, a Door opened and a dark figure awaited.

  The images battered him.

  It was enough.

  His Foresight was known among his own people. The Dwarves, who understood such things as well, would accept true Vision as proof. Even Avila would have to agree or deny that wizards also had that talent. Now he could say, in truth, what he himself had Seen with his own Vision.

  He had only to convince Daran, High King. He pulled away from it, filed it away in his mind to consider later.

  Now there was Ailith and she was in pain.

  She moved as if she hurt, desperately.

  Raising her eyes to Elon’s, Ailith looked into his steady dark gaze.

  Say it quickly, she told herself.

  “He wanted me to know what a soul-eater felt like and through me, you.”

  Now Elon understood. That soul-shattering pain. A shudder shook him. To lay that on her, to know what it would feel like. Tolan had layered pain on pain, knowing that Elon would Heal it, knowing what it would do to Ailith to watch him share it. And Colath as well.

  Say it and quickly, before my courage runs out, she’d said and now he knew why. Before she lost the strength and the courage that held that awful pain at bay.

  Colath went still at Ailith’s words.

  A soul-eater.

  Through the empathy all their people shared but particularly through their bond, he knew what he felt was only a small measure of the terrible pain she suffered, a fraction of it. He looked at Elon. Who nodded.

  Colath took a breath and braced himself. This was going to hurt a great deal.

  “Ailith,” Elon said, “you know what I’ll do.”

  She did.

  Her eyes. The expression in them pierced him, the bitter sorrow that was mirrored in them and the agony.

  She took a breath.

  “Do it, Elon, before I can’t bear to watch.”

  Reaching out with his magic, he measured the scope and the depth of it, hardened himself against it and then took it in. Even so it cut into his heart and soul like knives. The pain of it was soul-scorching, searing. He felt Colath shudder at the shock of it, felt Ailith wrench as she shared their pain and they shared hers. In her eyes he saw the sorrow and horror of knowing what it did to him, to them. He bent his will to it, held onto it, felt Colath lend his strength, as Ailith reached down into her core to pull up the last dregs of her own will to hold and help. How had she endured even so long? To smile as she had?