His fingers scrabbled on the stone finding nothing to hold. No. No. No!
Sarai’s eyes opened wide; brilliant glowing violet. “Mine.” Her hand shot out and clamped on the stone. Her fingers appeared to penetrate into the cliff.
She pulled them both back onto the knob.
Her distant tone turned hard. “All mine.”
Her skin grew hot against his neck. The limp doughy feeling in her flesh was now like velvety steel.
Balanced again, his body still feeling tied in knots, he dared to hope. “Sarai?”
“Dizzy,” she muttered. She pushed her foot against the cliff. A slurping sound and the rock parted around her boot. Braced, hand and foot, Sarai plucked the needle out of her shoulder. “Freak.”
“Sarai, talk to me.”
She blinked. Her gaze less intense, but now more alert. “Drug. Started to fade, felt my element calling. It was close.” She swallowed. “Didn’t know how to touch it. Mine. Mine now. Not weak anymore.”
Maybe not weak, but less than coherent. She’d somehow managed to renew her link to the stone. The surge of elemental strength appeared to have blunted some of the drug’s affects. Bannor couldn’t be sure if it still threatened Sarai. He knew nothing about her elemental nature except that stone was her ally in all shapes and forms. It couldn’t hurt her.
Perhaps even a poison that used minerals as an ingredient would be less effective.
They had to use what windfalls fate dealt them. He spoke to her in measured voice. “Sarai, can you get us up to the notch?”
She pushed the hair out of her eyes and stared at him as if deciphering his meaning. She nodded. Taking the rope he’d thrown around the projection overhead, she tied it around her waist.
“Follow.”
He didn’t have an opportunity to stop her. Fingers and toes gouging indentations in the stone, she clung to the wall unafraid and seemingly immune to the pull of the rocks and sea below. She scrambled along the cliff as if she were moving across level ground. That didn’t help Bannor. Those shallow holes in rain-slick granite didn’t tempt him at all. He’d kill himself if he tried. He could only uncoil the rope and let her ascend.
Odin’s breath. She was out of control, not understanding. Hopefully, when she reached the notch, he could get her to secure the line.
It took only moments for her to reach the spot. Sarai stood in the alcove and looked back as if she expected him to follow that treacherous path up the precipice.
“Tie it off!” He hollered.
Nystruul’s chilly tones came from above. “Savant, is the star gone yet? Sweet relish for Hecate’s altar.”
He took a breath. Even if he made it, they still had the avatar to contend with.
Sarai vanished into the niche and after a few moments returned to the opening. He took up the slack. It felt solid.
She waved.
Bannor pulled again. It didn’t give. How did she attach the rope so fast? He would have to trust her.
Tossing the coil off into the darkness below, he knotted a hanging loop. He quickly made another to have two handholds. The rope rose into darkness on a diagonal. The rock wall was scored with fissures and pitted from erosion. Lines of strata formed jagged ridges. He’d rappelled across worse, but under dry conditions. It had also been over three summers ago with the guidance of a skilled mountaineer.
Nothing to do but try. He put his hands through the loops and settled his weight. Letting out breath he started across the face.
“Such sport, savant. Shall I see how your star fares?”
Stay focused. He bounded over crevices and cracks, feeling the urgency, keeping his gaze pinned on the vanishing point of the rope twenty paces up the cliff.
His foot hit the edge of a fissure and plunged inside. Off balance, he lurched sideways. Needles jabbed his stomach as he felt himself lose control. He countered with the other leg too late. His shoulder thudded into the rock. The world spiraled as he rolled across the face, rough edges and protrusions jabbing his back and side.
In desperation, he brought both legs up and managed to halt his momentum by wedging a foot in a crack. Gasping, he glanced up. The notch lay directly above. He could see hints of what could be usable gripping points. He no longer had the strength to hand-over-hand up the rope.
Half way there.
Sarai peered down at him. What was she thinking? Why didn’t she help?
As if in answer to his question, the rope started rising, pulling him up to the notch.
Reach, pull, reach, pull—her movement fascinated him. She didn’t appear to even be braced, somehow rooted in the stone above. Her arms showed no strain. He aided with his feet to speed the ascent.
The power of an elemental. They’d need that and more to face the monster now waiting on the ridge top.
Sarai reeled in the last of the rope separating them. Standing on a broad flat surface again, he let out a sigh of relief and put his arms around her. It felt good to be out of the rain, off the side of that precipice.
She returned the hug clumsily. “Mine. All mine,” Sarai muttered. She blinked, her eyes the only light in the dark crevice. “My One.”
From the few rays of moonlight that penetrated, it appeared the alcove went some distance back into the cliff. He could easily stand up inside. Even arms spread he could take a long step before touching the walls. The scuff of his boots echoed off in the darkness.
Something squeaked like a rusty hinge. Bannor’s blood froze. “Savant,” Nystruul’s voice echoed from deeper within. “Step into Hecate’s vestibule.”
* * *
True elementals are one of the few races in the universe beside the Ka’Amok to possess a tao. Through the strength of their will they animate a ‘body’ of their element and make it as viable a shell as a human spirit does flesh. Hundreds of generations of evolution have given their kind incredible control over their parent element.
How they accomplish this is quite intriguing. Dissecting their varied forms to learn their secrets is a fascinating pursuit I enjoy…
—From the Dedriad, ‘musings of an immortal’.
Chapter Thirty-One
« ^ »
Even in the darkened confines of the rock alcove, Bannor knew what lay hidden farther within. Amid the stale dust and the acridness of guano hung the stench of death. It was impossible to be certain of distance in the faint light. At the edge of his vision, Bannor made out a pair of glowing red pinpoints.
Nystruul’s eyes.
Bannor clamped his left hand on the wall and gripped Wren’s sword in the other. A puzzled look on her features, Sarai clung to his waist staring into the darkness.
Rain pattered inside the entrance, and waves rumbled outside. Gusts of wind stirred the dust.
The avatar must have known where they were going and had beaten them here. The frustrating inevitability made Bannor want to yell. To toil so hard, to fight and climb all this way, simply to run into the creature anyway.
“Dead,” Sarai mumbled. “Not belong.”
“She lives,” the avatar rasped. “Pity that the poison seems to have made her dumb. Such a waste, all that magic, so little elf.”
Angry heat rushed through Bannor. “Pity this,” he growled. He looked at Sarai and thrust out his open hand, palm up. “Sarai, show this bastard your magic.” He clenched his fist.
Her mind clouded by poison and elemental power, Bannor couldn’t be certain how much Sarai understood. So far, she understood. The emotion in his voice would be unmistakable.
She narrowed her eyes. Her jaw tightened.
“Savant, don’t even…” Nystruul started.
Sarai made a hammering motion with her fist.
The cliff convulsed. Bannor staggered to one side. Nystruul shrieked. The red pinpoints vanished as a roar boomed through the cave and hot air gushed into their faces.
Sarai slammed her fist into her palm. A thunderous concussion rocked the cliff. Sections of the ceiling pitched inward. The avatar’s howls r
everberated through tons of granite. She gritted her teeth. Using her knuckles, Sarai made grinding motions in her palm. A chill went through Bannor as he felt the stone around him writhing. Muted by the rock, the shrieks peaked and finally stopped.
“Quiet,” Sarai said, fists clenched at her side. She went to Bannor and put an arm around his waist. She rubbed her cheek on his shoulder. “Mine. All mine.”
Bannor shuddered. A horrible way to die even for something as unspeakable as Nystruul. It brought back images of when he’d been trapped in Sarai’s stone fist—the rock crushing down… His skin prickled. If the avatar were truly immortal, he wouldn’t be imprisoned forever. They must get away—make time. Perhaps when he’d rested, he might find a way to use his power to permanently disable the Nystruul. How did you kill something unkillable?
“Sarai?”
She looked at him and clutched his arm. “Mine.”
“Can you get us on top?” He pointed through the ceiling.
Sarai blinked at him. She nodded after a moment. Taking his hand, she led him to the wall. She didn’t stop. The granite opened like a giant mouth and sucked her in.
“No, Sarai, no!” He tried to fight off her grip. Sarai’s elemental strength made her hold like a steel manacle. His arm had plunged into the wall up to the wrist before he could brace. Talons of fear raked through him as she inexorably dragged him forward. “Sarai!” She didn’t appear to notice his resistance.
His elbow vanished. The wall made slurping sounds. It felt as if a maw of clay were devouring his arm. He twisted like a drowning swimmer trying to keep his head above the surface. “Sarai, stop!”
His shoulder entered. The clammy embrace spread down his side. Tendrils of liquid stone bulged around Bannor’s torso. “Stop!”
Taking a deep breath, he tottered on one foot, balancing for an instant before the rock engulfed him.
Absolute blackness. No pit or dungeon could be so lightless. He felt viscous matter expanding and contracting around him, pressing down and pushing him ahead like a melon seed popped forward between giant fingers. His heart hammered wildly. No air. He couldn’t take a breath. He sensed the titanic mass of the cliff crushing down. If Sarai’s concentration wavered for an instant he would be entombed; lost forever in this rock void.
He’d never felt such fear. Trapped in a grave of solid rock. Using up his last moments of air in a futile attempt to scream. Dying slowly—painfully.
He latched onto his only point of reference; Sarai’s grasp. How could she see to navigate? It didn’t matter as long as they came out of the stone soon. His lungs already burned. Not much air left.
Please, get us out of here, Little Star.
It may have only been instants, but it felt like an eternity. All at once, the ground spit them out with a wet sputtering sound. He emerged gasping and coughing. Leaned over on hands and knees, he tried to keep from retching. Rain tattooed on his back and neck.
Odin, let me never have to do that again.
Sarai stood at his shoulder, a quizzical look on her face. She smiled and gestured. “The top.”
He glanced around. The headland looked about fifty paces wide here and grew thicker inland. A thin layer of soil covered the stone; farther out on the ridge it became raw edged rock like spines jutting out of a dragon’s back. It rose to an angled point a hundred paces toward the water. It was a long way down to the sapphire beach. The arduous climb had given him a graphic appreciation for exactly how far.
Wren’s corpse lay alone and naked to the rain somewhere down there. The thought ached, like salt rubbed into a wound. He should have done something. Perhaps if he and Sarai had only listened to her and cooperated they wouldn’t be in this mess. They’d be in Cosmodarus; safe.
Wren would be alive.
He looked out to sea. The ebony ocean made the night sky seem huge in comparison to home, as if the heavens were wrapped around them.
Lost—so very lost. Without Wren they might wander the cosmos forever and never to step foot on Titaan again; always pursued by the avatars, never resting.
Bannor rose. He would not give in. Wren had been safe. She risked herself to help others; to help him. She lost her life trying to give him the safety she had won for herself. He would not let everything she strove to accomplish be for nothing. She wanted to make sure the avatars never harnessed the Garmtur’Shak Nola. She wanted to use his power to help other savants to be safe.
Was that so selfish? All he and Sarai had seen was how it inconvenienced them and impinged on their freedom. They had never wanted Wren’s help, and wouldn’t admit how much they needed her. It was too late now.
Far too late.
“Bannor?” Sarai touched his arm. Her luminous eyes looked concerned. His beloved was in there someplace, submerged in poison and elemental force. The power had staved off the killing blow, but what survived was child-like and primal. He could sense her reaching out, trying to make sense of events and emotions.
He took her hand in both of his.
She put her other hand on top and smiled. “Mine.”
He sighed. “Yes, yours.”
Bannor turned his attention inland. Through the dark and rain he could make out the beginnings of a forest. At least there might be a place to find shelter and food.
He pulled on Sarai and she followed. The rock trembled under their feet as they moved.
She looked back and made a shoving gesture. “Quiet.” The stone creaked and groaned. Bannor imagined he heard another shriek.
All went silent again, except for the wind and rain. He pressed on, moving them faster.
They would see the avatar again.
It was only a matter of time.
***
Bannor and Sarai lay in a hollow beneath a deadfall. When he expressed a desire to stay dry, Sarai manipulated the soil and rock so it formed a solid shell over the trees. It took only an instant for her elemental powers to scoop out a sizeable area and make an embankment to keep running water out of their enclosure.
The ground was hard but dry. It smelled of wet vegetation and loam. The breeze was only a gentle sigh in the trees. He wanted to be out of his soaked clothes, to rest, if only for a bell. They should have at least that long before the avatar freed himself from Sarai’s granite prison.
He kindled a small fire with the tinderbox in Wren’s pack. He stripped off his tunic, breeches, and boots and hung them to dry over the flames using branches that jutted down into the hollow.
He coaxed Sarai out of her clothing, and into some of Wren’s dry leathers also in the knapsack. The guilder clothing hung loose on Sarai’s slim elven body, but he found them a good fit overall. Seeing Sarai wearing the savant’s clothing made a pang shoot through his heart. Only hours ago the two had been quarreling and knocking each other senseless. He forced it down. Wren was gone. They had to do what they could to survive.
Stripped to his undergarments, he lay back against the dirt embankment.
So exhausted. Every muscle ached. Have to rest. Bannor shut his eyes for a while, and then opened them, aware that Sarai was still sat cross-legged at his side seeming content to simply stare at him. It unnerved him, but he couldn’t admonish her. She was like a child now. Elves needed little sleep, and the elemental forces gave her limitless endurance. It must be how she resisted the poison. The body never grew fatigued; it simply kept staving off the affects.
He had no way of knowing whether her unusual behavior was a product of this internal conflict, the elemental power, a combination of the two or something entirely different. When the power first came back, she’d acted scattered, confused, eventually regressing into this childlike state. He didn’t know when during those events Nystruul had shot her with the dart.
It seemed strange that a creature of his power would use such a device. In retrospect, the weapon’s effectiveness had to be respected. Nystruul did more damage with a tube and a piece of sharpened metal than he’d done with all his god-like magic.
Ironic.
Why does all the irony have to come home to roost in my nest?
He put his arms up to make a cradle behind his head. Orange and yellow tinges of light danced across the dangling masses of his clothes and the haphazard rock and log ceiling. Smoke eddied among the damp branches before escaping out a trough he formed by shifting two of the logs. Sarai stretched out by him and put her face against his chest. Her cheek felt warm and her hair like tufts of down against his skin.
She senses we’re linked somehow, even if she knows nothing else.
He lay in the cool lean-to, listening to the sigh of the wind, the crackle of the tiny fire, and the gentle rise and fall of Sarai’s breathing.
Bannor didn’t realize he’d nodded off until the pop of the fire startled him. He felt a groggy awareness that he must have slipped into a shallow sleep. For how long, he didn’t know. With Nystruul on their trail, he couldn’t risk staying in one place too long.
He felt drained. He needed to rest and regain his strength. He felt certain that Nystruul wouldn’t give him that time.
He must risk getting what rest he could. If he wore himself out, the avatar would catch him anyway.
Bannor swam at the edge of unconsciousness, drifting in and out of a hazy sleep. Sarai stayed warm and comforting at his side, a tiny island of hope amid a sea of misery. For this one moment, he was at peace. He treasured it. This might be the last one he ever enjoyed.
The ground shook, rattling Bannor awake. The rumbling continued for long moments. In the distance, he heard what sounded like explosions. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. The fire had burned itself out and the faintest tinges of gray shone through the space between the dike and the roof. The rain had stopped. He must have dozed off for bells.
Sarai sat up and fixed on the sound.
“It comes.” Though she said it with no inflection in her voice, it sounded ominous anyway.
She must have done the creature far more harm than his first attack. Perhaps it was simply growing harder for Hecate to keep rejuvenating her immortal puppet.
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