by David Wind
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Areenna awoke first and slipped from the lean-to. She walked to the edge of the crest and peered downward. In the lighter gray of the early morning, she was able to see the trail’s descent clearly. Her sense of anticipation soared, and all she wanted was to get across the crest and to their destination.
She turned toward the lean-to and sensed Mikaal still asleep. Taking advantage of this rare privacy, she walked a short distance away and tended to her personal needs. Returning, she pushed a thought to Mikaal, who emerged from the lean-to, smiled at her, and sought his own moment of privacy.
Five minutes later, they breakfasted from their dwindling supply of dried freesh while the kraals ate cob, and she pleaded with Gaalrie to eat some of the freesh. The bird finally ate a strip of freesh. The feeling the treygone sent back to Areenna made her gag.
“That wasn’t nice,” she scolded Gaalrie aloud.
Mikaal shook his head, a smile firmly fixed on his lips. “I agree with Gaalrie.”
“She had to eat.”
“Agreed, but she doesn’t have to like it any more than we do.”
Without further hesitation, Areenna and Mikaal mounted their kraals and began their descent. To their right, the sun broke from the horizon, but as it had for the past weeks, the sun did not rise upward; rather, it moved westerly. Still, it was a sight they had not seen on the trail ringing the mountain range.
At midday they were halfway toward the second crown, which they saw rising ahead of them. With her eyes locked on the top of the lower peak, Areenna sent the giant treygone toward the rocky projection. Floating on a soft updraft, Gaalrie banked slightly and dipped down toward the second crest. As she flew, Areenna and Mikaal saw an impossible sight—a green plateau between the two mountain peaks.
At the far end of the plateau, which ended at the second peak, they saw the concave and shiny opening the Speaker of the Eight had shown them in her vision. With a gasp, Areenna ended the connection with her aoutem, but not before asking Gaalrie to return.
“You saw?” she asked Mikaal.
He nodded. “The grass before the entrance, yes.”
“Strange, is it not? And why could we see that not, when Sirod showed us this place?”
He shrugged. In the last three quarters of a year, he had seen so many strange and unbelievable things that even the sight of green grass in the snow and ice did not surprise him.
Areenna laughed when she caught his thought. “So far have you come that nothing surprises you any longer?”
“Many things surprise me. You do, every day. But the grass, no. It is a marker to tell us we have found what we seek.”
“I surprise you, do I?” a warmth, gentle and sweet, spread through her.
Instead of answering, Mikaal pushed Charka on. The going was slow but steady and soon they reached a level point on the trail to find themselves staring down at the valley separating the two peaks. The second peak, the lower one, was still high enough for clouds to ring the highest point. There was just enough peak visible to make out its white crown against the gray sky. Areenna sighed, thankful they would not have to climb the peak.
What lay below the peak, the swath of green cutting through the plateau and leading up to the place they sought was a welcome sight.
Finally, Mikaal said to her silently, as he dismounted and stepped before the large blue-coated kraal. He put his hands to both sides of Charka’s long muzzle and pressed his forehead to it. He drew the warming comfort his aoutem offered and returned his own to him. He dropped his hands and turned to Areenna just as Gaalrie landed on Hero’s saddle bar.
Areenna stroked her aoutem’s head, dismounted and stretched her body. “I feel like I have spent my entire life on his back,” she said, continuing to twist and stretch the kinks that had grown with each mile ridden.
“We will be there soon,” he said, staring toward their haze-covered destination. “We need to be moving. It’s getting late.”
“A hard taskmaster you are,” she said with a smile and sensed the anxiety bubbling within her was doing the same to him.
“Only as hard as you have taught me to be,” he replied, but he did not return her smile.
What bothers you?
I don’t know. Something feels wrong. But it is not here, not of now.
A premonition?
I see nothing. It is a feeling only.
Then we need to be wary.
“Always,” he said aloud. “And we need to be on our way.”
They mounted and started downward, Mikaal leading and Areenna following behind with Gaalrie once again beneath her furred cloak. The descent was slower than they’d expected. The trail more slippery than it had been on the upslope.
It took them three hours to reach the point where the mountainside met the valley created between the twin crowns. They started forward, moving quickly toward the place they had been seeking for months. As they rode, Areenna became aware of something she had not sensed on the trail. Rabt, she told Mikaal.
Mikaal joined with her and he too sensed the presence of not a single rabt, but many. He took in the expanse of green grass and smiled. He would hunt later.
When they were three-quarters to their goal, Areenna drew Hero to a halt. Mikaal stopped next to her. What?
She shook her head. Wait! She looked around but saw only grass and snow. She closed her eyes and sought for anything in the area. She found no life. Then she sent Gaalrie aloft, and through her eyes, sought for what her senses could not find. Again, there was nothing.
We are alone. There is no one near. Yet there is something.
Mikaal nodded and urged Charka forward. As they closed the distance, the air grew slightly warmer. Moving nearer, but not too close, they inspected the entrance.
A strange low vibration began to pulse within Areenna. At that exact moment, the wall of the entrance glowed softly. “It is… crystal,” Areenna said, staring at the wide sheet, which was perhaps twenty feet across and ten feet high. Streaks of stone ran up and down in strange patterns. When they were closer, she saw piles of gravel at the base of the crystal sheet. Dismounting together, they walked cautiously to the entrance.
Bending, Mikaal picked up some gravel. His eyes went from his hand to the strands still on the door and knew they were the same rock. It only took a second to realize what had happened.
He held his hand out to show Areenna the gravel. “These rocks were somehow bonded to the surface as camouflage. Look,” he said, pointing to a jagged and uneven strand of rock that ran from the top to the bottom of the crystal sheet. “The same.” He dug a fingernail under the edge of a strand and pulled. A few pieces came loose. When they hit the ground, they crumbled into gravel.
“A façade to hide the entry, to make it look like the mountain.” Areenna ran her fingers over the crystal. The pulsing inside her grew stronger at the touch. “It’s warm.” She tapped it with her knuckle, but there was no sound. She pressed her palm to it and closed her eyes. There was a slight vibration. She dropped her hand and drew her shortsword. The metal of the weapon Roth had created for her glowed even in the grayness of the coming night. She grasped the pommel, turned it so the top of the pommel faced the sheet of what seemed like some sort of metal and tapped it. The sound was clean and crisp, not like metal upon metal, but not unlike it either.
Within her, the pulsing quickened. Do you feel the vibration?
Mikaal closed his eyes and joined with Areenna. He shook his head. In you, yes. In me, no. It is only for you.
Areenna nodded toward the entrance. “The question now is how do we open it?” With that, she sat on the grass before the door.
Mikaal stood there for a moment before sitting next to her. “How does sitting here open it?”
Instead of speaking, she took his hand in hers and placed their clasped hands on her lap. “Come with me.” She drew him into her mind and pushed them both toward the crystal entrance. She sensed along its surface, trying to push through, but could not.
Blocked! She moved them up to the top, seeking a crevice to push her senses through but found nothing, nor was there anything at the bottom or sides.
Can you use your mother’s ability, the one to move objects… the one you gifted to Neleh?
She studied the crystal. Move it how? Up, down, to which side?
His brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed as he scoured the crystal wall. He looked up and shook his head. Then down and again shook his head. It seemed wrong to raise or lower the sheet. He focused at the point where it touched the right side of the mountain. The side curved off less than three feet from the crystal’s edge. The left side of the mountain was long enough, and its slope less severe than the right. To the left.
She had followed his thought pattern and understood his conclusion. I will try.
She settled herself and called forth her power. With it came a strong increase in the strange pulsing, which vibrated throughout her body. Without moving, she pushed her ability toward the crystal, grasping its surface and forcing a bond between her mind and the gleaming facade. She pushed with every bit of her ability. Nothing happened for long hard fought seconds, until finally, there was a give and the crystal moved. It moved barely the width of a hair, but move it did.
She pulled her ability back, pushed it deep into the source of her powers and let it rejuvenate. While she did, she called Gaalrie to her. When the giant treygone landed on her shoulder, it settled gently. Bring Charka.
Mikaal called his aoutem, who came to his side and, as gracefully as the large kraal could manage, Charka went to his knees and lowered his body to the ground, pressing against Mikaal.
When all four were settled and joined together both in mind and body, their energy and life forces melding together and burrowing deep inside her, Areenna took a deep breath and released her ability. This time there was no gentle feeling of the crystal; rather, she pushed a stream of power so strong the crystal vibrated loudly, emitting a screech, as it began to slide to the left. Areenna’s body reacted in turn.
Sweat beaded over her brow despite the cold air rushing across her face. The cry of the crystal vibrated through her until she was pulsing in tune with it. Colors swam through the crystal, swirling and churning. Reds and blues, violet, yellow, and greens raced through it in ever changing rainbow streaks. With her body vibrating and the colors flashing faster across the crystal, Areenna drew all her strength, all the energy of the others into her and pushed. The crystal’s sound changed and rose higher until a note, like the peal of a bell, resounded through the plateau echoing off the mountainsides. When the sound ended, the entry opened another few feet.
Exhaling sharply, her power drained, Areenna sighed. She turned to Mikaal, and saw his eyes focused intently on the space between the crystal and the mountain.
“Mikaal?” Mikaal!
It took him a moment to respond. When he finally turned to Areenna, there was a strange look in his eyes. “Don’t you feel it?” he asked.
The colors and sound of the crystal still ringing in her ears made it impossible to concentrate. “What?”
“There are two people inside… They are not alive; they are not dead.”
CHAPTER 29
At the base of the mountain, two miles inland from the coast, the Dark Master stood on a platform built by his slaves. While he silently surveyed the forces spread out before him, seven hundred dark, mutated, and armored ghazi soldiers of the Circle knelt silently, awaiting his commands.
Another hundred human warriors stood off to the left of his soldiers. These exiles of Nevaeh had been living in the northwestern outlands; men and women who had rejected their domains, and most criminals, recruited and subverted by the Black Sorceress. All called by the Master while he had sailed to this very spot.
The Master turned toward the mountain and the twin peaks, his senses projecting upwards, seeking the two who had so far eluded him with their blocks. As he searched for them, his body began to vibrate when the chiming sound Areenna had released raced down the mountain’s slope and reached him.
He took in the sound, held it to him and when the sound vibrating within him ended, he smiled. He had them and with them, the prize the Circle had been seeking, the prize that had been stolen from them twenty-five hundred years before. Tomorrow he would have all, and the Circle of Afzal would be once again complete.
He raised his arms and pointed to another group of eighty or so of the semi-human ghazi who were off to the right. Prepare to move. The rest remain here. Be ready for those who follow behind. Stop them!
“You!” he shouted aloud this time, looking at the controlled and mind-locked exiles. “You are to come with us. Prepare yourselves. We leave soon.” His eyes lingered on the Nevaen exiles and the mutated wolves who roamed within their ranks.
He turned back to the mountain, focusing on the lower peak. Leaving now, they would be near the lower peak by morning. We have you…
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Areenna, with Mikaal at her side, moved toward the opening of the entrance. As they approached it, she sensed what he had spoken of moments before. There were two inside the mountain, neither dead nor alive but somewhere between.
The feel of them was strange. Coming across this type of ghostly mind touch worried her. She gripped the pommel of her sword, not for protection but for the feel of something solid within her grasp.
They reached the opening and stopped. All they saw was darkness—the inky, black darkness of the unknown. Surprisingly, the scent of the air was fresh and clean. There was a hint of moisture in the cavern’s air, and she realized water flowed somewhere in the mountain, giving the air its freshness.
With her right hand on her sword, she took Mikaal’s in her left and glanced at him. His features were tense; strangely, his mind closed to her. Not closed, she realized; rather he was focused so intently on the interior it was as though he’d put up a block.
“What is it?”
Mikaal shook his head, unaware he was blocking her. “I don’t know. There is something… different. A darkness but not of evil.”
Releasing his hand, she called forth the ability to create illumination. A half dozen bubbles of white light rose from her open palm and floated through the opening. They moved forward, and the ceiling above them took on a glow. The nightmoss, so long deprived of any form of light, was absorbing her illumination and soon glowed above them.
The nightmoss grew brighter as the bubbles went deeper, revealing the extent of the cavern. In the distance, two objects floated four feet above the floor. They walked cautiously toward them, and Areenna’s powers burst within, unleashing a fiery heat. Next to her, Mikaal reacted to her surge of power and his abilities sprang forth.
Coming closer, they studied the two long boxes floating a few feet above the floor. Between them floated something long and thin. What? Mikaal asked, staring at the sight. In the way Areenna had taught him during his training, he sent his senses ranging to the objects.
There are two bodies in the boxes. I like this not.
She put her hand on his arm. They are the reason we are here. There is no other explanation. Come.
He studied the boxes for several seconds. Then he moved forward, drawing his longsword as he walked. Behind him, Charka called out. He joined effortlessly with his aoutem and catching Charka’s emanations, relaxed. The kraal sensed no danger.
They reached the floating containers and saw from the sheen, they were made of the same crystal as the entry wall. The thing floating between the boxes was some sort of staff, carved of a pale wood with a simple curved handle. Mikaal glanced at Areenna and back at the black boxes. “It is the same crystal, yes?”
Areenna sheathed her sword and with both hands, reached toward the box on her right. Mikaal caught her arm and held it back. Are you sure?
Areenna searched his face, seeking the cause of his doubt but could not decipher it. She nodded once. Absolutely.
Mikaal released her hand. “May I join with you?” he asked aloud.
&nbs
p; Without responding, Areenna drew him in, took a step closer and placed her hands on the box. The crystal came alive, not with sound, but with color. The container, as she now knew it was, changed from black to dark purple to red and to blue before even that color faded and the crystal became clear.
Areenna gasped at the sight of a woman floating within the crystal box. Her skin was the color of a tawny dar. Her white blonde hair, the exact shade of Areenna’s own, hung in long shimmering waves. She was naked, her arms crossed over her breasts, her hands on each shoulder. Her chest moved not at all, but Areenna knew this woman was not dead, yet she lived not either.
Look at her face. She is Bekar of the Highway. [2]
Mikaal saw what Areenna saw. It was Bekar, yet, his instincts told him she was not Bekar. No.
The other box, he said to her. She placed both hands on it, but nothing happened. She raised her brows in question. Mikaal studied the box, pushed his senses along its surface and found something undefinable. He placed his hands atop Areenna’s warm skin. At his touch, the black of the box changed and new colors wove through the crystal. The colors faded and the crystal turned clear, revealing a dark-robed figure afloat in the clear crystal container. They could make nothing of it, its face, hands, and feet hidden by the folds of the robe.
Arrow-like, a chill raced through Areenna; she intuitively knew what he was. “A Master… a Dark Master,” she whispered.
They stepped back from the crystal container. “I don’t understand,” Areenna whispered, looking from one crystal box to the other. “Who is she… who is he?”
“Not just who, we have to learn why they are here to understand what’s expected of us.”
“You’re right.” She stepped back and cast another glance at the boxes. “There is powerful magic here. I need to study it.”
“It’s late as well,” he told her, looking at the entrance and the deepening grayness outside. “We should set up our camp and—” He smiled, “—hunt rabt.”
Areenna, her attention fixed solidly on the floating boxes, nodded absently.