by Cindy Dees
“What brings you to see me, child?”
Gawaine’s warning firmly in mind that the zinnzari would likely not be enthusiastic about helping her wake their legendary king, Raina took a deep breath. “These past few years, my friends and I have sought to wake the Sleeping King, a man you know as King Gawaine of Gandymere.”
The shaman rocked back on her cushion, hissing through the gap left by one of her missing front teeth.
“Please hear me out before you refuse to help me,” Raina said quickly. “My companions and I have traveled much of what was once Gandymere in search of clues to his whereabouts and how to wake him. And we’ve made excellent progress. Now another being seeks him as well, not to wake him but to possess his body and make it her own. Time is short, and we need your help.”
“I’m an old lady living in a cave, waiting for death to claim me. I cannot help you.”
Raina smiled gently at the zinnzari woman. “You and I both know that’s not true.”
That seemed to startle the shaman. She picked up a bit of wool braiding, weaving its strands together absently. Raina noticed the woman made a mistake but did not stop to pick out the misplaced knot. Good. The shaman was rattled.
“Last year, my friend Will Cobb and I traveled to the dream realm. There, we found a beautiful grove filled with trees and birds, and the softest green grass you could ever imagine. Can you guess who we found in the grove?”
The shaman held up her hands as if to ward off the rest of Raina’s tale.
Raina continued, “We met the dreaming echo of Gawaine. He’s been trapped there all this time, waiting for someone to rejoin his spirit to his body. Your king not only lives but is awake on the dream plane. Only his body sleeps, guarded by your kind.”
“Enough, child. Stop!”
Raina fell silent.
“The legends say my people will end when he wakes—”
Raina interrupted. “Legends propagated by Hemlocke in order to keep your people from rebelling against her?”
The shaman stared at Raina. “How do you know about the Green?”
“Gawaine told me about her.” Raina continued relentlessly, “He also said it is time to wake him, and that your people would likely resist the idea at first. He said you would be afraid to believe me and my friends when we say we have the means and knowledge to wake him.”
“Do you? Do you have the means?”
Raina did sit up then, and Lakanos leaped forward to help her, steadying her with a strong arm behind her shoulders and piling folded blankets and skins behind her. “May I have my pouch?” she asked him.
She rummaged in her bag, coming up with Gawaine’s crown. She held it out, and the gold edgings on the leaves caught the firelight and glittered bright as sunlight.
The shaman slid off the cushion and to her knees, and then bent over, touching her forehead to the floor in a deep obeisance to the crown of her king. Raina could only imagine what a shock it must be to see a piece of the regalia of a man the shaman’s people had waited five thousand years to wake.
Raina held out her right hand, showing the ring she wore on her middle finger. “This is his signet ring.”
The shaman rose up onto her knees and took Raina’s hand to reverently kiss the ring. “Where did you get these?” the shaman finally managed to ask.
“We found the crown in a cave guarded by the Boki. You might know them as the Night Reavers.”
The shaman growled deep in her throat, but Raina cut her off. “They were actually most helpful to us, and many of them died defending us so we could retrieve the crown from its hiding place and journey to the dream realm to meet Gawaine.”
“And the ring?” the shaman asked.
“We were led to it by a nature guardian who laid a trail to its hiding place. Shortly thereafter, I met Cerebus—”
“Gawaine’s steed lives?” the shaman cried.
“Yes. He was trapped, but we freed him. It is from his horn that this ring is carved. He gave me his blessing to wear it until I can place it on the finger of its rightful owner.”
“That explains why you yet live,” the shaman declared.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You should be dead already. Mages with your affliction only live to cast magic once or twice before the wild emotions take hold of them. But with my liege’s crown in your possession and his ring on your finger, the healing magics in those items must be stabilizing your spirit.”
Huh. It made perfect sense now that the shaman said it.
“A warning, child.” The shaman continued, “Do not be fooled into believing those items will protect you forever. Eventually, even they will not be able to ward off the wilding. You are in grave danger.”
“I’m in grave danger anyway.”
“From whom?” Lakanos demanded quickly.
“From Vesper. From Hemlocke if and when she figures out what I’m up to. From the zinnzari themselves if Gawaine speaks true.”
Lakanos was suddenly beside Raina, crowding her back, away from the aged shaman.
“Be easy, sir knight,” the shaman said. “I will not kill your charge. On that you have my word.”
“Thank you for your concern, Lakanos,” Raina added. “But she speaks the truth. It will be the zinnzari who guard Gawaine’s body who pose a threat to me. Assuming the dragon guarding him does not incinerate me first.”
“Dragon?” Lakanos pivoted slowly to stare at her.
Raina smiled up at him lamely. “Well, yes. Hemlocke is the Green Dragon, and it is she who hid Gawaine’s body and has guarded it all these years.”
“What have you gotten yourself into, White Heart?” Lakanos blurted.
“It is a quest of utmost importance, I assure you. The safety and survival of Haelos and everyone in it depend on it.”
“Treason,” he grunted. “That doesn’t describe the half of what you’re up to.”
“Not really, no,” she agreed. Full-out rebellion was closer to the truth, but Lakanos prudently didn’t say the word aloud.
Raina turned back to the small woman. “Gawaine told me that where I find the zinnzari, there I will find his body. I need you to tell me where I can find the rest of your people.”
“I am the last of my kind.”
“You lie,” Raina said flatly. “I have met the spirit warriors of your kind who still die to this day and join Gawaine in his grove, guarding him into eternity.”
“Gads. You really have found him,” the shaman breathed.
“Like I said. We’ve found his spirit. Now we have to find his body and join the two.”
“Do you communicate with his spirit?” the shaman asked curiously.
Raina cast an uncomfortable glance in Lakanos’s direction. “I dream of him from time to time.”
“What does he say about waking him?”
Raina didn’t hesitate. “He says time grows short, and it is now or never. If Vesper finds his body before we do, she will steal his body, and he will be destroyed. His last link to this plane will be gone, and even his dreaming echo will be lost.”
“Who is this Vesper?” the shaman asked.
“Another spirit trapped upon the dream plane, also seeking escape. However, she has recovered enough of the shards of her spirit that she is very close to breaking out. She is a Kothite, the child of Archduke Ammertus, and very powerful.”
“Also very evil,” Lakanos added grimly.
Raina stared at him. “You know who she is?”
“Aye.”
“How? Memory of her was erased!”
Lakanos pursed his lips. “The Royal Order of the Sun also has its secrets, Emissary.”
“Gawaine has spoken to me about great swaths of human memory being lost or stolen. How did your order avoid that?”
“Are you asking as an emissary?” Lakanos asked reluctantly.
“I am if it means you have to answer me!”
He sighed. “I do not have to answer you. But I do understand why you have a compell
ing need to know. Certain members of my order have the means to protect our memories from … slipping away.”
Raina heard the pause and knew he was glossing over some secret he didn’t want to share with her. She let the moment pass without challenging him.
He continued, “We wear a certain gem”—he fished out a chain from under his shirt and showed her a roughly tumbled stone milky green in color and about the size of her thumb—“native to Haelos and imbued with certain protective qualities, one of which is protecting memories.”
“You remember Vesper, then?”
“I was not born when she came to Haelos, but I have been taught of her by knights who did know her.”
Who knew her. But who didn’t fight against her, apparently. “The Heart fought on the side of the Empire, then?”
The shaman looked back and forth between Raina and Lakanos, obviously struggling to follow their shorthand conversation.
“Only the White Heart has the luxury of standing on both sides of the line,” Lakanos replied shortly.
“You support Vesper, then?” she challenged.
Good heavens, what had she done? She’d trusted this man and told him everything he needed to know to guide Vesper straight to Gawaine’s body. Did she have it in her to stop him somehow? Could she kill him if it came down to that? She might only have one good blast of magic in her before she died, but she might have to use it to stop him.
She wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice herself to save Gawaine. She only wished she knew if she could actually succeed in taking out a knight of his power. He would have spell defenses. Several small attack spells in quick succession, followed by a single big spell. Except she didn’t know any killing spells. Would a big enough blast of raw magic take him out?
All those thoughts passed through her head in the single instant it took Lakanos to answer firmly, “I am most definitely not on the side of Vesper. Neither she nor her sire is stable enough to merit support from the Heart.”
“What are you two talking about?” the shaman finally interrupted.
“Nothing, madam,” Lakanos answered smoothly, bowing a little in the old woman’s direction. “I apologize for our obtuseness. It was rude of us.” He shot Raina a warning glance as he straightened.
She nodded slightly, acknowledging that now was not the moment to finish their conversation. But they would later. That she silently vowed. Turning her attention back to the shaman, she said, “As my guardian has pointed out, we have been extremely rude. I haven’t even properly introduced myself. I am Raina, White Heart emissary, and daughter of Tyrel.” That last she added in hopes that it might hold some weight out here in the wilderness where her Heart rank likely meant little or was actually a detriment to her.
“Long ago, I was called Aylinoor. Now people just call me Ayli.” The shaman turned away and fussed over serving up bowls of bright yellow stew over rice.
“Is this a big storm?” Lakanos asked conversationally as they all began to eat.
“Pshaw. This is a bare puff of breath. If you want to see a storm, step into a crawling cloud.”
“And what’s a crawling cloud?” the knight followed up.
“A tainted mist that blows off the Crest.” She raised a hand. “It’s touched by void magic. Death envelops everything the cloud touches.”
Raina was glad to let him carry the conversation, particularly since Ayli seemed taken with him.
“This storm may be nothing, but mark my words. I feel a big one brewing. I’m thinking maybe this little puff of air is running in front of a mist hurricane.”
“A mist hurricane?” Lakanos inquired.
“Aye. That’s when a crawling cloud and a sand hurricane come in together. They rearrange the whole desert. Move the dunes, bury springs, and uncover great rock outcroppings no one knew were there before.”
“Doesn’t that disrupt travel routes if the water sources shift?”
“Oh, aye. Something terrible. Takes months after a mist hurricane comes through for the caravans to resume travel through the desert.”
“Full caravans traverse the Thirst?” he exclaimed.
“Great long trains of camels carrying goods and riches pass through. That’s how this little settlement gets the supplies we can’t make for ourselves. We trade water and food to those who pass by this way. Like earlier. Your girl healed us all—everyone pitched in meat or spices or goat milk to this pot to make your supper.”
“An efficient way to live,” Lakanos commented.
“Brutal and simple. You help me; I help you. You don’t help others, they don’t help you, and you die.”
Lakanos grinned. “What can I do to help you?”
Ayli threw her head back and laughed. “Stars, you make me feel young. That’ll go a long way toward getting you what you need, you handsome rascal.”
Lakanos spared Raina a single sidelong glance before murmuring, “What I truly need is the location of your zinnzari clansmen. My charge will not stop until she finds them or kills herself trying, and I will be stripped of my knighthood should I fail to keep her safe. Please help me. I’m at my wit’s end with her.”
Raina sincerely hoped he was overstating both the threat to his knighthood and how frustrated she was making him with her quest.
“What of you, kindari?” Ayli asked Cicero abruptly. “Why do you travel with this strange child?”
“She doesn’t have enough sense to look out for herself.” A shrug. “My kind look out for the weak and innocent, protecting nature’s creatures from harm. The way I see it, she’s one of those.”
Raina stared at him. She’d never really considered why he’d taken her under his wing and looked out for her the way he had. She’d always stacked it up to him being too honorable to walk away from a young, vulnerable girl on the road alone. But she was no longer vulnerable or alone. And yet, he’d stayed. “Truly, Cicero, why do you put up with me?”
“I believe in your cause, and I believe in you to see it through if you can just stay alive long enough. That is why I lend my sword to your protection.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I’m sure I do not deserve friends as stalwart and loyal as you.”
“Don’t go all mushy on me now,” he warned.
“Right. No mush.” She sniffed loudly and took a wobbly breath.
No more was spoken of the zinnzari that night as the hour grew late and the settlers in the cave doused the fires and crawled into their beds. Even through the rock walls, Raina fancied she heard the wind screaming and felt the raging storm shaking the earth beneath her. As exhausted as she was, sleep was a long time coming.
Morning was hard to distinguish from night with only torchlight illuminating the cave. Raina crawled out of bed and dressed while she assessed her skull this morning. It was back to its usual dull roar.
“How’s the storm doing?” she asked Ayli.
“Abating. Another hour or two, and it should be safe for us to go out.”
“And where are we going?” Raina asked cautiously.
“You want to find my brethren, don’t you?”
“Most assuredly!”
“Then that’s where we’re going,” the shaman declared. On that note, the woman turned her back on Raina and commenced pulverizing some sort of pea-sized seeds into a fine powder using a mortar and pestle held between her knees.
Bless Lakanos for convincing Ayli to help them. Maybe they would beat Vesper to Gawaine after all. And maybe, just maybe, they would succeed in waking him up.
CHAPTER
27
Justin huddled deeply in the fur-lined cloak Kadir had been wise enough to acquire for him. How could it be spring everywhere else in Haelos and feel like the dead of winter in this corner of the continent? His feet were half-frozen, his hands not far behind, and his nose was definitely frozen all the way through.
“I think this should do it,” Kadir said from in front of him, stopping at the crest of a ridiculously high mountain that they’d just spent th
e past two days climbing, step by painful step.
The air was thin up here, and even as young and strong as he was, he labored to breathe and felt light-headed with even the slightest exertion. “Now what?”
“Now we start a fire and see who it draws.”
Justin gratefully dumped the bulky load of wood from his shoulders to the ground. “You think General Tarses is going to magically appear because we light a fire in his mountains?”
Kadir grinned. “It won’t be just any fire, my boy. It’ll be elemental fire. Ritually enhanced and certain to infuriate any ice-aligned beings in the area.”
“It’s the infuriating bit that worries me,” Justin retorted. He’d heard the legends and songs of General Tarses. The man had conquered an entire continent. He would crush a simple pair of mages.
“Yes, but we know something he’ll give his life to hear.”
Justin thought Kadir was entirely too optimistic that he was going to get an actual chance to tell Tarses they knew where his children were before the general blasted them off this mountaintop. This wasn’t his plan, however. He was just the lowly apprentice.
“Lay a fire while I set up the ritual circle and prepare the components,” Kadir ordered.
Justin broke twigs and stacked kindling, sorting the firewood he’d carried up here into piles of increasing size, ready to feed into a fledgling fire. “Ready when you are,” he reported.
The sunset was nearly complete, with only a thin slice of its fiery orb skimming along the mountains in the west. And then it disappeared from view. Their plan was to light the fire at night when it could be seen for miles.
Kadir nodded and took a seat in the circle. “Light the fire, Justin.”
Using his body to shield the grease-soaked wool from the light breeze up here, he struck the flint, sending sparks into his fire starter. It lit on the second try. He bent over it to blow gently and began feeding in twisted strands of grass. Over the next few minutes, he gradually fed the flame larger sticks of fuel until he had a decent fire crackling merrily. “Fire’s steady,” he murmured.
“Keep feeding while I start the ritual.”
Justin watched with interest as Kadir built a magic dome to contain the wild ritual magics and then summoned more and yet more fire magic to himself beneath the dome. By the time Kadir had finished, the entire interior surface of the dome danced with flames writhing and twisting in a ferocious effort to escape.