Wit'ch Fire: Book One of The Banned and the Banished

by James Clemens

  But a larger fear finally drove Mogweed onward. Ever since beginning this journey, Fardale or the og’re had always been at his side or close by. Now with his wolf-brother surely dead and Tol’chuk lost among the tunnels, the thought of being down here alone, with only his own heart and mind for company, finally freed his legs. His feet whispered across the stone floor to close the distance to the torch.

  “Yes, it’s a large chamber,” Rockingham said, examining the room from the tunnel’s mouth. “Lots of other tunnels lead from here, though. Who knows which way leads out—if any of them do.”

  Mogweed furtively poked his head into the room. There was no sign of Fardale, or any of the others. His ears strained for evidence of the hissing that had flowed through the tunnels earlier. It was difficult with his heart thundering blood past his ears. “Maybe,” he mumbled, “whatever is down here already ate its fill.”

  “We can only hope so, but can’t count on that,” Rockingham answered.

  “What should we do?”

  “There are too many ways out from here. We run a good chance of becoming lost. I say we wait here until sunrise, then try to sneak back out the way we came.”

  “What about the woman?”

  “Nee’lahn?”

  “Yes.”

  Rockingham’s face took on a pained expression, but Mogweed could tell it was mostly feigned. “Her life wins us our freedom.”

  Genuine sorrow winced for a beat in Mogweed’s breast, but he quickly pushed it away. He lived. That was all that mattered. Besides, the nyphai race had always been cold to his people.

  The silence became awkward after only a few moments. Neither wanted to dwell on this last thought. Words were needed to free them from the memory of Nee’lahn’s violet eyes.

  “You’re truly a shape-shifter?” Rockingham asked. He had settled his back to the wall so he could rest and keep a full view of the chamber.

  Mogweed’s head bowed slightly, suddenly shamed by his heritage—or at least by the reputation of his people, as undeserved as it might be. “We are called si’lura.”

  “And you can just change your shape whenever you want.”

  “Yes, once I could.”

  “How wonderful that must be.”

  Mogweed raised his head, shocked to hear such a thing stated by a man. Humans had always hated them. Surely the thought of shifting disgusted them.

  “To shed an old form and pull on a new one; I wish I could do that sometimes: simply walk away from an old life and start a new one. New face, new body.” Rockingham’s eyes drifted inward at some private memory. His eyes quickly focused back. “That would be one way to get out of my present predicament,” he said with a slight laugh.

  This man was odd, nothing like the people Mogweed had expected to find on this side of the Teeth. In his wood, humans had always been the hunters, the terror of the forest paths. He wanted to know more of this strange man. “What is this predicament you speak of?”

  Rockingham stared at him, his eyes judging and suspicious. Then he sighed and grew resigned. “What does it matter if I tell you? I was sent to fetch a girl from the valley here—a child the lord of this land suspected was a wit’ch.”

  A tentative smile crept to Mogweed’s lips. Surely the man jested with him. He had heard stories of wit’ches, but everyone laughed at such tales.

  Rockingham caught his expression. “This is not a fireside fable. The Dark Lord was right. She is a wit’ch.”

  Doubt thick in his heart, Mogweed wondered if the man was using the trickery of his tongue to try to fool him. “This is the girl the winged monsters asked about?”

  “Yes, but she escaped me, and the master will not let that go unpunished. I must either run far away, beyond the Black Heart’s reach, or retrieve the girl.”

  “Where is she?”

  Rockingham’s features hardened. “How in the Mother’s foul grace do I know? If she’s smart, she’s out running with her tail tucked between her legs and won’t stop until she crosses the Great Western Ocean.”

  “But if you could catch her, you’d be safe?”

  “Not only safe, the Dark Lord would shower gifts upon me—gifts of magick and riches.”

  Mogweed’s mouth dried. He slipped beside Rockingham to lean on the wall, too. “Magick? This lord of your people, he has skill in this?”

  “Oh, yes, I’d say he has skill.” Rockingham shuddered. “He can do some … amazing things.”

  “He must be greatly revered.”

  Rockingham looked at Mogweed, his face wide with shock, then burst out laughing. “Revered!” he said between gasps. “You know, I never heard anyone use that word in connection with my august lord.” He clapped Mogweed on the shoulder. “I like you, shape-shifter. You have an interesting view of life in our lands.”

  Mogweed did not know how to respond to this praise, unsure if he was being mocked.

  “What brings you to these lands anyway—a shape-shifter who can’t shift?”

  “We … I seek a cure. Books mention a place called A’loa Glen, where powerful magick still resides.” Suddenly light dawned in Mogweed. He stood straighter and faced Rockingham. “Is that where your great lord reigns?”

  Rockingham’s eyes suddenly looked sorrowful, and he shook his head. “I hate to tell you this, friend, but A’loa Glen is a place of myth. I have traveled much of these lands. Such a city does not exist.”

  The man’s words were like stones tossed against Mogweed’s chest. It didn’t exist? His voice choked in his throat. “Are … are you sure?” He glanced at his body: the thin arms, the wan skin so weak that clothing had to be worn to protect it. He couldn’t be stuck like this forever! “You must be wrong!”

  “I don’t wish to hurt you, and would let you have your dreams, but such a place truly was destroyed long ago, sunk under the sea.”

  “Then how am I to free my body?” This question was not meant for Rockingham, only for his own crying spirit.

  Still the man answered, his voice a shrug. “My master could do it, I’m sure. His magick is without equal.”

  Mogweed’s heart tensed. He grabbed at this hope and clutched it to his chest. “He would do this?”

  “My lord is not one to grant wishes easily. But who knows? If I presented you to him as a friend…” His voice suddenly soured. “But that’s impossible. I could not show my face in that court, not after failing him.”

  “But if you had the girl!” Mogweed said. His mind ground on this new hope. Maybe all was not lost. “You mentioned a shower of gifts—including magick.”

  “Of course, with the child we could ask for anything. But I see no girl here.”

  Mogweed sagged. There had to be a way!

  “But who knows?” Rockingham said. “I still might come across this girl. And with you helping me, perhaps we could yet catch her.”

  Mogweed’s fists clenched with the hope. He turned to Rockingham, his lips determined, his voice just as sure. “I will help you.” For a moment, Mogweed thought he caught the hint of a sly smile behind Rockingham’s eyes, but then in a breath the man’s face seemed guileless again, open with invitation. Mogweed added, but now with less certainty, “I will help you catch the girl.”

  “YOU MEAN TO kill this wit’ch?” Kral asked the elv’in, struggling not to reach across and throttle Meric’s thin throat. He knew the elv’in referred to the girl Elena. What was this madness concerning the child? He had been with her almost an entire day, and she seemed no different than any child of her age: no magick, just a scared wisp of a girl.

  “What concern is it of yours, man of the mountains?” Meric said as he followed the ridged back of the og’re across the last of the chasm floor. Their destination lay just ahead—a fissure cleaved into the chasm wall. “If I should slaughter the wit’ch, I would be ridding this valley of a plague.”

  “This is not your land, elv’in. You will not kill anyone of this valley on the whim of prophecy.”

  Meric twisted to face Kral. “Do no
t try to stop me, or you will discover how swiftly an elv’in can kill.”

  “You threaten when you should be begging forgiveness,” Kral said and thumbed his ax free of its catch at his belt. Without his even glancing at it, the ax’s haft dropped snugly to his palm, the handle cold in his hand. If a fight was what this elv’in wanted, he would be glad for the challenge.

  Meric’s eyes glanced to the ax, and his face closed darkly, his eyelids hooded with threat.

  Though the man seemed slight of muscle, Kral recognized a snake when he stepped on one. The ease and sharpness of this fellow’s movements suggested hidden dangers, like the folded fangs of the pit viper. Kral tightened his grip, leaving his thumb free to pivot his weapon. He waited. In the ways of the mountain, he would let the elv’in make the first move.

  And Meric did—with amazing speed.

  The elv’in vanished from where he stood and appeared crouched atop a nearby boulder. A blade so fine and thin it seemed more shadow than substance now stood in the man’s fist. The elv’in had jumped too quickly for Kral’s eye to follow. Only a whine of warning in the back of his skull had alerted Kral to the motion of his opponent.

  The warning sounded again, and Kral barely had time to raise his ax and deflect a thrust toward his belly. He did not even see the attack, only reacted instinctively. His ax struck the sword with such force that Meric’s sword arm flew backward. The elv’in stumbled back a few steps, catching his balance, his face bright red with exertion.

  Kral judged that these lightning movements taxed the elv’in. No man could move with such unnatural swiftness for long. The elv’in must be drawing on some strange elemental powers in his blood.

  Meric panted between clenched teeth.

  Kral hoped he could survive until the man tired. He carried the ax in both hands now, and the muscles of his arms bulged with tension. Meric squinted one eye at him and raised the tip of his sword.

  Suddenly the character of the light in the cavern blew apart. The weak elv’in’s light was engulfed by a blood radiance. Both combatants swung to the source of it.

  Tol’chuk stood fully upright, towering over the two men, with an arm raised high above his head. In his hand rested a stone the size of a bull’s heart. It blazed forth with a blinding radiance, as if the og’re’s rage was given form. “Stop!” he boomed into the cavern, his voice echoing to the walls. “You swore oaths! You be brothers now. Among og’res, brother does not kill brother!”

  It was not Tol’chuk’s words or even the blazing red stone that dropped Kral’s ax arm. It was the pain laced with shame in the og’re’s expression. Suddenly Kral’s face flushed with a shame of his own. Meric also lowered his head, and the sword vanished from his hand. Where it had disappeared to, Kral could not say. No scabbard hung from the elv’in’s belt.

  “Why do you fight?” Tol’chuk said, lowering his arm. “Over this wit’ch? Kral, you speak and act as if you know this female.”

  Kral could not lie, at least not again. He kept his voice low. “I suspect I know who the elv’in speaks of. She is but a child.”

  Meric spoke next. “Child or not, she is a monster. I will kill her. All who aid her are creatures of evil and will die beside her.”

  “I know this child. I saw what tried to kill her—there lie your monsters! Those who help her have shown themselves to be honorable and of noble spirit. I will gladly stand by their side and die if need be.”

  Kral’s words shook the tight resolve of Meric’s features. “But the oracle of Selph warned—”

  “I care not for the words of some soothsayer,” Kral said. “Words of prophecy are often spoken in such twisted tongues. Only rock speaks plain and true.”

  Tol’chuk’s crystal had begun to fade. He folded it into a pouch on his thigh. “I agree with the mountain man,” he said, his expression sour with memory. “Oracles do not always speak plain.”

  Kral added, “And innocent blood once spilled cannot be returned. The child has done nothing to warrant a knife to the heart. I will judge her by her actions, not by prophesied words from across the sea.”

  Meric, his face held stolid, swung his eyes between Tol’chuk and Kral. “Your words are spoken from your hearts,” he said. “I will give them thought.”

  “So, wit’ch or not, you will not harm the child?”

  Meric stared at him, darted a glance to Tol’chuk, then spoke. “I will hold my sword—for the moment.”

  Tol’chuk clapped his hands together. “Good. We go.”

  Kral nodded and hitched his ax.

  Meric turned on a heel and followed the og’re. Kral studied the man’s back. Behind his eyes, Kral’s skull still buzzed with echoes of a distant warning. As a man of the mountain, one with the rock, he had probed Meric when the elv’in had promised to stay his hand, judging for the truth behind the man’s words. Nee’lahn’s final words to Kral had been proven correct: Meric was not to be trusted.

  The elv’in had lied.

  32

  ELENA GASPED AND backed against the wall of hewn rock, her eyes wide on the awakening statue. As her shoulder struck stone, the moon’falcon flew from its perch with a squawk and winged away, a streak of light fleeing from the miracle before them. From the corner of her eye, she saw it flash into the tunnel exiting the chamber, escaping back the way they had come. A few goblins jumped at the bird as it flew, but a piercing screech retreating down the tunnel told her the falcon had escaped.

  Yet even the loss of her bird did little to sway her attention. Before her eyes, crystal stone melted to liquid light—first the sculpted head, then the boy’s body. Like a rose whose petals were opening to the sun, the sculpture stretched upon legs of radiance.

  As stunned as Elena was by this miraculous event, one other sensation intruded—pain. She clutched her right hand to her chest. It blazed with a fire as radiant as the boy’s light, as if the ruby color in her skin had become a flaming glove too tight for her hand. Tearing her eyes from the boy, she stared at her hand. It looked the same. No flames engulfed the fist held to her breast.

  She tucked her hand within the folds of her shirt, trying to stanch the ghost fire. In the shadows of the cloth, the burning skin faded to a bruised ache. Holding her hand there, buried close to her heart, she realized that it must be shielded somehow from the boy’s light. Still, a part of her tingled with an insane urge to rush to the source of the light and merge that power with her own. She trembled. A strange combination of attraction and repulsion fought within her breast. Yet, remembering the madman’s warning to her not to touch the statue, she kept her feet in place and her hand hidden.

  She glanced to where the scarred man named Re’alto stood among his goblins, and found him staring at her. Goblins pranced in agitation about his legs, their tails lashing back and forth. The change in the statue had obviously spooked them. One goblin tried to scramble up the headmaster’s leg, digging gouges in his thigh with its sharp claws. The man did not move except to bat the beast away. Blood ran in thick rivulets down his leg, but still his eyes remained fixed on her.

  He seemed to know he had caught her eye. From across the distance, he mouthed a word to her. Though no voice spoke, she knew what word his mouth formed, his lips twisted with hate: Wit’ch.

  She cringed from his sneer and mad eyes, trying to pull back into the rock itself to escape his loathing. Fortunately, Uncle Bol slipped to her side, stepping between her and the madman’s gaze. He placed an arm around her shoulders. Relieved, she hid within his embrace.

  “It’s as if Chi is here,” her uncle mumbled beside her, his eyes never leaving the statue. “You can feel a trace of the ancient spirit in the air.”

  Elena sank deeper into his arms. She, too, sensed the echo of some force from ages past. This spirit called to her blood, urging her forward. Yet her hand still ached and throbbed with remembered flames, a warning to stay away.

  She heard her uncle mumble something. The tremble she heard in his voice drew her attention from her thoughts. Un
cle Bol wore a sad smile, his eyes shining moist in the light. “I wish Fila were here to see this,” he said as he hugged her tight.

  His words and touch awakened the sorrow Elena had boxed away in her heart for all those she had lost—her mother, her father, her aunt, her brother, and in some ways, even herself. Through tears, she stared toward the center of the chamber.

  Er’ril remained frozen before the statue, as if he had become the sculpture instead. The swordsman’s eyes also shone bright in the light, but not with awe or wonder: His face was etched with lines of shock and horror. As Elena watched, Er’ril sank to his knees, his face now even with the boy’s. “I’m sorry,” he said so hoarsely Elena barely heard the words.

  The statue reached toward the swordsman with its iron hand. The sculpted fist opened, and the boy placed the metal palm on Er’ril’s shoulder. Its touch sent a shiver through the man. “No,” the boy said, his voice a wind whistling through a crystal flute. “I am the one who is sorry. I failed you all.”

  ER’RIL WATCHED THE boy’s pained expression deepen. He was sure his own face mirrored the boy’s. Er’ril’s voice cracked with tears. “I killed you, slaughtered you upon my sword.” In his mind’s eye, he pictured the spill of blood welling across the oiled wood.

  The boy’s grip on his shoulder tightened, and his voice gained substance. Er’ril even heard the accent of the boy’s coastal home. “I have not much time to speak. Unleashed of the crystal, my spirit will soon dissipate. But know this, Er’ril of Standi, you did not kill all of me. I still live. Your blade only cut from me that which every good man would wish killed in themselves.”

  “Your words make no sense. I remember you lying dead on the floor of the inn.”

  Crystal lips smiled sadly on Er’ril. “Have you never discovered the truth of what happened that night?” The boy seemed to pull inward. “So much time has passed, yet so little wisdom has been gained,” he said softly. “I should never have failed my brothers.”

  “Fail? It was the foul traitor Greshym who played black tricks on us all. You were but an innocent pawn in his games.”