by Tara Janzen
He’d fought on every front of the last three battles, his sword singing a death song to the skraelings. The Liosalfar followed him when ordered by Llyr, but not without caution. His troops had suffered the fewest losses, true, but he himself was marked for death. Some said he was of the half-dead already, his skin showing the grave.
Sweat trickled down the side of her face, and she wiped at it with the back of her hand. Though a cooling wind had picked up off the sea, she was suffering from heat. The exertion of battle, she was sure, though no one else around her looked as feverish as she felt, and they’d all fought hard.
She took another swig from the Red-leaf flask, her gaze following Mychael on the Magia Wall. She’d lost him in the Dangoes. The last words he’d spoken to her had been on the causeway, and they’d been as strangers since. He would look at her as he’d just done, but no more often than any other warrior on Mor Sarff. They were all looking to her as the aetheling since they’d seen the way it was with him, their failing Dragonlord.
The Red-leaf brew cooled her throat, but not her brow, and she wiped at it again with her good arm. The other arm hurt terribly, making her wonder if the skraeling blade that had cut her had been poisoned. More than likely ’twas just the filth of the sword’s edge causing the wound to burn.
Her last hope to save Mychael had been Ailfinn, but Shay had dashed it. Ailfinn was not coming, and in truth ’twould be a miracle if the mage could save herself and her company.
Another, deeper pain flared in her chest. She had lost Mychael, and there was no time to mourn. No time.
Tucking a strand of hair up into her braids, she looked across the beach to the gates of time, the tunnels leading to the Weir Gate. The wind was visibly moving over the sand, picking up in force and speed, feathering the grains and in places spiraling them up into the air. The clothes of the dead soldiers were fluttering and snapping, giving them the odd illusion of life. Trig had ordered the tunnels kept sealed, but she knew how to open the one that had held Bedwyr, and one was all she needed. When Mychael died, she was going down the wormhole.
A day back, she’d yet been holding on to the strange hope of taking Mychael’s body to the Dangoes, if the worst befell him and naught else was to be done. She’d thought to seal him in the ice next to Rhayne, praying the white hound could protect him from the ice-bones and the demon darkness of Dharkkum, and praying the ice would hold him until he could live again. But the foul billows of smoke massing in the south made going back to the Dangoes impossible.
Nay, she’d lost him on all counts.
A great roar from the Troll King’s barge had the hairs rising on her nape. All around her, the Liosalfar cast surreptitious glances her way. ’Twas her blood the Troll King was calling for, but he would be denied by the wormhole. She brought the flask to her lips for another cooling swallow.
Aye, he would be denied.
Chapter 27
Madron stood on a little used trail on the northeast boundary of the pryf nest, her cloak wrapped around her against the driving rain, watching Naas on the trail below. Sounds of “Khardeen” carried to her on the wind, along with the clash of swords and thunder rumbling against the vault of the Serpent Sea. Her father had told her of such storms beneath the earth, but she’d never seen one. ’Twas a daunting sight. Lightning skittered across the walls and ceiling, crawling over the rock. The thunder went on interminably, echoing back and forth.
Corvus and Snit flanked her on either side, and they, too, were watching the white-eyed crone chant into the dark, using a song-charm to lure an ancient beast up out of the deep. Madron smelled the old worm before she saw him. His was the darkest scent of the earth distilled down to its most potent essence: rich loam and batholithic stone, must and decay. The smell rolled over them like a wave, and beside her, Corvus hissed on an indrawn breath and took a step back. Snit moved closer to her, taking a handful of her sodden skirt for courage.
When the old worm himself glided into view, Snit would have broken and run, if not for the man’s hand snatching him by the scruff of the neck.
“ ’Tis the crusher, I tell ye.” The little man squirmed, trying to break free. “He’ll grind yer bones into dust inside yer skin. I’ve seen ’im do it, I have.”
“Hush,” Madron commanded. “We are not here to be crushed.”
“Then why call ’im?” Snit asked.
“To churn the worms,” she answered, not taking her eyes off Naas.
“... vessel of matter and thought, of the eternal mystery and miracle of life, death,” the old woman intoned, her voice rising and falling through the rain with the rhythm of the final words to be spoken. “Circling, ever circling and being coiled round and warmed by a great serpent devouring its own tail... held in the grip of wisdom. Lightning of the cosmos! Sword of the gods! One is All—Ouroboros!” She called out the name, and the gargantuan worm, gnarled and scarred by immemorial time, picked up speed, the last of it coming out of its deep hole beyond the Magia Wall, while its faceless head made for the gates of time.
Well pleased, Naas looked at the group above her and signaled for them to follow. She smelled the blood of battle. Far more ominous, she smelled the smoke of Dharkkum through the fury of the storm. Time was running short. She would be done with the traveler.
He’d been unexpected, and a less likely carrier she could hardly have conjured herself, a criminal with a violent past. But he was here, and he wanted to be there, and betwixt and between the two was an immeasurable expanse over which he could carry the books. For certes she couldn’t drop them down the hole on their own. Even if Corvus died, his corpse would land in the right place, in the right time, which suited her needs well enough, and the needs of those she would help, the White Ladies. Of course, she was also certain that since they had gone to the trouble of sending him here, the White Ladies most probably did not want him back there.
Men, she thought with a hmmph, a means to an end, a means to an end. Such was the rule. Still, she didn’t envy him the journey.
They followed the dirt trail down to the north base of the damson cliffs. The old worm had his own entrance into the inner core, though few dared to take it. Naas was one who did and herded her flock before her into its dank depths. They came out into a rough-edged tunnel and followed it to the first intersecting passageway of luminescent green and heliotrope, one of the gates.
Once inside the headland, the old worm began moving at an alarming speed, barreling through the crudely bored tunnel that circled through and connected the shimmering gates. Naas quickly ushered the others into the large cavern at the heart of the cliffs.
Corvus wiped the rain from his eyes, scarcely believing what he was seeing, or that he was seeing it. The wormhole lay before him, far more immense than anything he had imagined, a gaping abyss alive with chain lightning and the writhing swirl of prifarym. He moved closer and the lightning crackled, bluish white and purple sparks soaring toward the domed ceiling.
A memory flashed in his mind, and icy fear gripped him. He’d longed for this moment, hardly dreaming it would ever come to pass, and now he could think only of the horror of what he would do.
The worms in the upper nest had amazed him, their greenish black bodies wet with slime and smelling of the earth. But he sensed a difference here with the worms of the weir, and most definitely with the great beast sliding through the outer ring. These were the time worms.
“Eat yer salt,” the old woman commanded, coming up behind him and shoving a bag at him.
He near jumped out of his skin. He did let out a startled sound, which set the crone to cackling.
“Hear now, hear now. No need to fret. Once yer in the hole, you’ll not keep yer wits about ye for more’n a bit. No more’n a sleep is it after that, a nice long sleep.”
Small comfort, for he remembered “the bit” before sleep very clearly—painfully, terrifyingly clearly.
“Eat,” she reminded him, giving his arm a jiggle.
He looked down at the bag i
n his hand. “All of it?”
Her answer startled him anew. “Well, let me see, then.” She snatched the bag away from him and hefted it in her hand. “Ah, now, ’tis true that havin’ the perfect weight of it in yer body is important, quite vital. So many grains of salt for so many stone o’ weight.” She pinched him around the middle, gauging his weight, he supposed. A worried frown creased his forehead. “They must’ve given ye a just so amount when they dropped ye the first time, eh?”
And she had just told him to eat a bag’s worth, and was now trying to figure his weight with a few hard pinches.
“In solution,” he told her, slipping out of his rucksack. Water ran off the pack and pooled on the floor where he set it. Terror or no, he was going. He’d carried her books for her, and a goodly share of their supplies, but he’d also been allowed to bring a few of his own things. One was a scale, roughly calibrated, true, but a scale he’d devised for just this purpose—to measure the chrystaalt, providing he had any when the time came.
He put the scale on the rock floor next to the pack, and for the first time, noticed the intricately incised grooves snaking around the rim of the weir. More mystery, he thought, running his hand over the elaborate pattern.
“No time for that,” Naas clucked. “Get on with it.”
He’d planned on making the leap even without chrystaalt, but faced with the reality of the deed, he wondered if he would have had the courage, or if the lack of it would have been the voice of reason telling him to stay.
The precise calculations for figuring the amount of salts were in Nemeton’s book, and Corvus had figured it thousands of times for his body weight, checking and rechecking, and all the while wondering where he would ever find the chrystaalt.
He took the bag from Naas and carefully poured some into one of the scale’s pans. It was similar to sodium chloride, only heavier grained and with a yellow cast. The crone knelt down and added a pinch more, then another, and another, until the bag was empty and his roughly calibrated scale was perfectly imbalanced.
“There ye have it.”
He looked at the tilted contraption, thinking of the time he’d spent over the years, figuring his dose to the nearest half a gram, and then figuring it again. He looked to the old woman and the gourd she was holding out to him and, in a rare act of faith, poured her measure of chrystaalt into the water, She stoppered the gourd with her thumb and gave it a good shake.
“Now drink,” she said, handing it to him.
Before he could think, or change his mind, Corvus lifted the gourd to his lips. When he was finished, he looked down to find Naas going through his pack.
“Yell not need this, or these.” She tossed aside his food kit and the leather jacks of water and brandy, his own distillation.
“It’s a desert on the other side,” he said.
“You’ll be found quick enough,” she assured him, “and you’re going to need room for the Yellow Book.”
His interest piqued, and he shot Madron a glance. The woman hadn’t let the priceless antiquity out of her grip since Naas had given it to her to carry. No matter how badly his fortunes had fared in the future, he could rebuild with such a prize.
“Aye, take a good look,” Naas said. “You’ll not be seeing it again.”
No, the White Ladies would take it from him before he recovered his senses, but he’d robbed their temples before and already was relishing the thought of doing it again. Perverse bitches to have tried to exile him to this forgotten time.
“Madron, bring the Chandra Yeull Le,” Naas ordered, but as Corvus had expected, the woman balked.
“Naas...” she began, her arms tightening around the heavy tome.
“I’m leavin’ ye the Prydion book, so don’t bother about the priestess pages, pretty though they be. The Chandra and the Fata are needed in the future.”
With palpable reluctance, Madron obeyed.
With his pack again on his back and the chrystaalt flowing through him, there was nothing left for him but the wormhole. Snit, the cowering child, was off huddled against the wall, trying to hide in his cloak.
“Come.” Naas took his arm and led him to a place on the rim. She knelt and threaded a silvery length of pryf silk through the grooves on the floor, then stood and shook out her skirts. “Would ye like me to give ye a good push? Or do ye think ye can manage on yer own?”
No hint of compassion softened the hag’s questions, and he knew she would as soon push him and be done with it.
“On my own,” he said.
Muttering under her breath, she left him.
Logic told him not to look into the weir, but logic would have also dictated that he stay in the twelfth century of this forgotten age, and he was going. The path lay directly in front of him.
His gaze scanned the perimeter of the rim before daring the central depths. The worms in the deep were golden, swirling around the weir in aureate waves. Lightning cracked and leaped up out of the abyss, blue-white branches of pure energy reaching for the ceiling. A dark cloud of mist formed in the wormhole and began to rise, coming for him.
Corvus watched the cloud and felt fear take hold of him again. His breaths shortened and quickened, adding to his panic. Would it be like this then? he wondered. A fall through an eternity of terror? Then, in the weir, he saw a glimmer of light, like sunshine glinting off the sand and a flash of golden hair... Avallyn.
From a short distance away, Madron watched the lone traveler balance on the edge of time. She felt his hesitation, his fear. There should have been bodhran drums and a chanting chorus to fill the weir with the rhythms of heaven and earth, an assurance that the fall was not out of God’s grace. Or rather the music would have been an assurance to a mage or a Druid. Mayhaps not for a felon.
Something assured him, though, for as she looked on, he slowly lifted his arms to his sides. Head back, chest lifted, he fell forward, his body making a perfect arc into the abyss. Lightning forked out of a billowing cloud of jacinth mist, snaring him in its tangs and dragging him down.
Madron watched him disappear, half in horror, half in envy. Felon or nay, he had embarked on the greatest journey the world had to offer. He was a traveler through time. Beside her, Naas waited until the lightning simmered into faint crackles of light.
“Come,” the old woman finally said. “We have another world to save this day.”
~ ~ ~
“To starboard! To starboard!” Caerlon screamed into the wind, gesturing wildly.
Slott’s barge crested again on the port side of Caerlon’s ship, riding a towering wave, and Caerlon froze in place, terrified that this time the barge would come crashing down on him.
The storm had blown up out of nowhere. There had been some rain, a bit of a breeze, but nothing to warn of a tempest. Violent gusts of wind and rain whipped the sea into gigantic waves and ship-sucking troughs. He’d lost three halvskips and countless skraelings. The battle was a shambles. ’Twas every beast for himself.
The barge slipped out of sight off the back of the swell, and Caerlon frantically continued tying himself to the mast. He’d wanted to get closer to the barge, but not that close.
“Dragons!” He spit the word out, his fingers fumbling with the wet rope. “Rotting dragons!”
They had ruined him. The Indigo Book spoke quite clearly about the creatures, and it said where there was Dharkkum, there would be dragons. But none had come. The pestilent smoke was pouring onto Mor Sarff, near choking him on every breath, and Ddrei Goch and Ddrei Glas could not be bothered, the rotters.
The gates. He had to get to the gates of time, but the shore could not be won.
He pulled one soggy rope end through a last loop and tugged on the rope. It should hold with one end tied around the mast and the other around himself; he needn’t fear being swept overboard. He’d left enough slack in the rope too, so he could move somewhat out of the way of crashing waves, if need be. “Rotting Quicken-tree,” he muttered, looking again to the beach. He’d seen the rott
ing aetheling among them, rallying them at every turn. The warrior on the Wall was another to be reckoned with. Icily pale and white-haired with an odd weir stripe, he was from among the half-dead, Caerlon guessed, harvested from the Dangoes, no doubt. And a dire day it was indeed when the fair and favored Quicken-tree resorted to such necromancy as it must have taken to raise him.
He had his own dread warrior, for all the good the cripple could do him without the dragons.
“Bring Wyrm-master up!” he yelled to Blackhand Dock, his ship’s captain.
The Dark-elf signaled the helmsman and went below. When he returned, he had Wyrm-master with him. The Dragonlord’s bad leg had been braced with a good strong wrap of leather, and he’d been given a boiled bull-hide gambeson, a mail shirt, and an iron helmet with a long nose guard. Caerlon had the Magia Blade strapped to his own waist. He’d debated whether or not to give it to his bedraggled Dragonlord, and decided ’twas best if he didn’t keep it for himself. Alone, without skraelings or Dockalfar to give him away, he could pass for a Light-elf. The strange sword would only draw unwanted attention. His plan was to sail to the Irish Sea, hopefully leaving the dreadful storm behind, and from there to quickety-split—alone—through Riverwood and make for the Weir Gate by going through Dripshank Well. There were backways and byways aplenty in the caverns, and if he was seen, he’d be wearing the tunic of one of the drowned Daur.
He was not deserting his army. Rather, he was accepting the foregone end. His strength lay in strategy, not hand-to-hand combat, and neither Slott nor his Dockalfar captains could benefit from any more strategy, however brilliant. The best he could do for them was to give them a Dragonlord and the Magia Blade, such as they were.
To that end, he unceremoniously clapped the mighty sword around Wyrm-master’s waist and sent him over the side with Blackhand Dock into a dinghy. His suggestion to Blackhand was to make for the barge, as the shore was certain death. Chaos reigned on the sands, but it was a chaos overrun with tylwyth teg, not skraelings.