He shuffled his feet, his heels sliding as he neared the others. Yet through it all, the giant held him up.
“Terrek?” Gaelin halted beside Roth. A gray shape sprawled below, its head and neck immersed in the slushy water under a freezing swirl of mist, its legs twisted and encased in white.
“It’s Hawk,” Terrek said in a husky voice. “Vyergin’s horse.”
Vyergin’s—
“No!” Gaelin pulled against Avalar’s hold. “No, I’ve got to help him! Vyergin would want me to!”
Avalar’s arms dragged at him. All around him, the world was spinning. Though voices shouted above, all he knew was the power swelling in his chest, the fire kindling from his bones, crackling tendrils of it stabbing through the coldness beneath him. For this, he existed—to heal and not destroy!
“Hawk is dead, Gaelin!” Straddling him, Terrek sat on his chest. “Listen to me! There’s nothing we can do!”
Gaelin stared at his friend through an angry blur of tears. “No. I healed him, Terrek! He can’t be dead. I won’t let him be dead!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Terrek eased off him and rolled to his knees. “Avalar,” he called.
Gaelin surrendered, allowing the giant to draw him to his feet and help him to his shan. “He needs rest, Leader Terrek,” Avalar said as she waited for Gaelin to mount. “This . . . presence in his staff is draining him.”
“It is,” Terrek replied. “And we will set up camp as soon as it’s safe, but not now.”
Gaelin caught the worry on Terrek’s face as he glanced at the walls penning them in. “Come,” said Terrek.
Already half drowsing on his shan’s shaggy back, Gaelin focused beyond Avalar on Argus’s green light, and the ghost’s angry scowl as he floated over her head.
✽ ✽ ✽
FELRINA GROANED AS the insistent knock came again, the force of it rattling the hinges. She flinched on the mattress she had come to despise, glaring into the shadows. “What?” she demanded.
“Priestess?” called a young man’s voice, after which there was a click as slowly the latch raised up and the door squeaked open.
She snorted, recognizing the intruder’s countenance behind the candle. “Leave me alone!” she snarled at her apprentice. “Can’t you see I’m sick? Go away!”
“But . . .” Gulgrin squeezed through the little doorway. “What’s he doing? You’ve been locked in here all day, and Mens wouldn’t let me in.”
“He’s punishing me,” she rasped. “Erebos wants this, so you better go!”
“But he’s angry you’re not d-down there, Priestess,” Gulgrin stammered. “He’s begun the ritual without you.”
“What?” She started up. “Who is? Mens?”
“Y-yes, Mistress!” Gulgrin answered. “Oh, my lady, it’s terrible! I know it’s a necessary thing, but I . . .”
“Yes, it is,” she drawled. “Everything we do is important for our future!” She slipped from the bed and gestured to her lantern. “Light that thing, Gulgrin. I must get dressed!”
He leapt to obey, his scrawny arms shaking as he touched his candle’s flame to the lantern’s charred wick.
Quickly she donned her tunic and her black robe. Choking on vomit, she fumbled for her leggings. “What has you so upset?” she asked with a glance at the boy. “None of these ceremonies are enjoyable. What are you—”
Felrina broke off, cocking her head at a distant shriek. She turned to her Blazenstone staff propped by the wall, reaching to stroke its crimson gem. “Without you,” she said to it, “Erebos is being cheated. He can’t fully absorb the pain unless you’re there.”
“Mens doesn’t care,” said Gulgrin. “He wants Erebos to be angry. He’s using four attendants, Priestess.”
She stared. “Four?”
The youth bobbed his head.
“He’s a fool!” She stomped on her boots. “No method should ever require so many. What’s he trying to do? Stop the heart? He knows very well it takes slow death to satisfy Erebos!”
Grabbing her staff, she bolted from her chamber and raced along the sloping tunnel. Gulgrin struggled to keep up. “He’s not thinking about that,” he panted. “They had another battle, and Mens lost fighters to Holram’s staff! And you haven’t made him replacements!”
“He had me paralyzed!” Felrina raged. “Bastard!” She halted to crouch in front of a hole in the stone floor and gripped its edge, then swung to the tunnel below her own. Louder and more stridently the agonized howling assailed her ears. “That’s too much!” she yelled. “Mens!”
The black-robe stepped from the darkness, smiling smugly. He arched his brows. “Yes?”
Felrina stumbled. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing, Mens? I could hear it from my room! You don’t even have my staff!”
“It doesn’t matter. Erebos is enjoying himself.” Mens lifted his hand into the torchlight, brandishing a tiny saw. “The attendants are having a contest to find out who can cut through first. Come and see for yourself.” Seizing her arm, Mens dragged her, struggling, around the bend and into the chamber. The high-pitched screams were frantic now—the mindless wails of a tortured animal.
The acolytes who were her peers turned their troubled faces toward her. Steeling herself, she forced her gaze to the raised platform beyond them and to the altar, where attendants held an older man stretched between them. The sacrifice’s back was arched, his face contorted.
She jerked from Mens’s grip, rushing between the wooden benches to stop below the altar. She lifted her staff. “Finish him!” she screeched at the Attendant First. “Do it now!”
He glanced up, the sacrifice’s half-severed ankle flopping in his grasp. By force of will, she lighted the gem in her staff’s crown. “Do it, or I’ll fry the poor man myself!” she spat as the Blazenstone cast arcs of scarlet above her head. “Until there’s nothing left of any of you!”
“ ‘Poor man’?” Mens snapped behind her. “On the contrary, he is honored by this!”
Felrina whirled and blasted her fire at Mens, reducing the floor in front of him to rubble. “It’s all a lie!” she roared. “Every word you have said! Erebos has promised us a new world, yes? For humans alone, isn’t that right? Well, what about him?” Wildly she gestured at the dying man. “Where is his promised paradise, Mens?
“Or what about the others we’ve killed? How do we know they’ll be reborn? What about my father, Mens? When will he share in our fortune? Will I ever see him again? No!” She wheeled to confront them all at once—the blur of gray and midnight robes, the attendants, and Allastor Mens. “This is wrong!”
Unsheathing the little knife at her belt, she sprang behind the altar. The four attendants abandoned their positions, their bloody arms outstretched, pleading with her to stop.
She paused, choking with revulsion as she probed the sacrifice’s chest. She slammed her blade in at an angle, ramming it under the ribs.
“No!”
The rock overhead splintered from Erebos’s cry, and Mens howled.
Felrina gawked at her knife’s quivering hilt, a chill of icy fear tingling down her spine. The man beneath her went rigid and convulsed.
Someone seized her from behind, throwing her hard to the floor.
“Take her!” Mens barked. He shoved at the attendants, striking them repeatedly across their backs with his staff. “I don’t care what you do!”
The Attendant First knelt beside her. Felrina rose with him, his bloody hands steadying her. “I’m going to be sick,” she whispered against his shoulder. “Get me out of here!”
“That’s right,” Allastor Mens snapped. “Take her to her room! I have the staff now! The Blazenstone is mine! She will feed Erebos next. You will prepare her at once. Understand?”
“Priestess, come,” The First urged sadly.
Chapter 37
TERREK SHIFTED NEAR the flames. The sun’s warmth penetrated his back but left untouched the ice that numbed his heart. Idly he regarded the foraging
shan. After another half day of travel, the gorge had widened, allowing them at last to camp by a small stand of trees.
Among the hardy bluebark, the six shan rose on their hind legs. With grunts and squeals, the little creatures threw their shoulders against the gnarled trunks and shook them, a hail of dead cones pattering from the frozen branches. As one of them bounced off his sleepy guard’s head, Terrek smiled.
He savored the feeling. The death of his brother still tormented him, and now there was Vyergin, too, and the men who had given him their trust.
Sighing, Terrek glanced over the drop-off at the chill water moving swiftly under the ice below. It reminded him of the stream in the woods next to their old manor, and of playing in the water as a child with Felrina, the friend he had grown to love more dearly than his own life. How he loathed the cult she had joined despite his attempts to dissuade her.
Where are you now? Terrek thought. What has happened to you, Rina?
Silva groaned fitfully and swatted at the air. Like Wren Neche, he dozed as though a part of him yearned to stay awake.
Terek nodded. “Exhausted,” he whispered, stifling a yawn. He straightened and surveyed the snowy clearing. Beyond the trees, the slab of gray rock loomed. Above the cliff’s stone face climbed the roots of the glacier, its blue ice glistening with streaks of white.
When a bare-armed figure appeared from the empty air between the trees, Terrek sprang to his feet and drew his sword. “Ponu,” he murmured. Sheathing his weapon, he made his way around the flames and his recumbent companions.
The small winged creature knelt behind a tree and watched him come. Terrek scowled as he remembered Tierdon and the restoration of Camron’s city. Nodding at a mage Terrek suspected was the mightiest on Talenkai, he crouched beside him.
Shaking back his long white hair, Ponu ground the crystal heel of his staff into the ice by his knee. “Welcome to my mountain, Terrek Florne,” the elf said. “You and your men have accomplished much by depleting Erebos’s forces.”
“Certainly more than you have,” Terrek snapped. He paused, taken aback by the unexpected hostility of his words. “Pardon me. I guess I’m tired, too.”
The mage’s violet eyes met his. “I do what I can,” Ponu said. “I am as alien to this world as you are. In sooth, I should not be here at all. I am too dangerous.”
“Why are you here?” Terrek asked.
“My own curiosity, I suppose,” Ponu said. “It is a rare thing when a planet has magic, and rarer still when it lives longer than it should. This is Sephrym’s doing, Talenkai’s warder. All stars must die, Terrek Florne, but this one never does.”
“So you came here to investigate? How?”
A knowing smile curved Ponu’s lips. He flexed his wings and lifted his crystal staff. “With this,” he said. “My Staff of Time.”
Terrek jumped as a bluebark cone struck his neck. He flicked a glare at the tree beside him and at the shan foraging at its base.
“Now I am trapped here, just like Holram,” Ponu said. “My homeworld is long dead. I will never see it again.”
Terrek caught the slight tremor of sadness in the mage’s lyrical tone. “You do have the elves here,” he ventured. “Don’t you? The Khanal elves?”
Ponu snorted. “The Khanal are children compared to me. In truth I love the giants more, for, to them, I am an equal. Whereas whenever I try to bond with the elves . . .” He shrugged. “I blame myself entirely. I enjoyed showing off when I arrived on Talenkai. I assumed the Eris elves shared my skills when first we met one hundred and eighty years ago. I built Tierdon, and in doing so, I frightened them. I may look like them. With the exception of my wings, of course. But I am not them, Terrek Florne, and how well they know it. So, truly, I have no people other than the giants on this world.”
Terrek was moved by the ache in the winged elf’s voice. “It must be hard for you to feel so helpless and yet be so powerful. Why do you say your home is dead?”
“Because that is what comes of the temptation that was my world,” Ponu answered. “My people loved to explore, and Chorahn was a time-portal. We used up its magic. One day when I tried to return, I found my planet a lifeless shell. Perhaps there are others like me, but Sephrym will not let me search. Warders are intelligent beings. They get bored. Now that Sephrym has me, he can observe the people here and be entertained. He will not let that go.”
Terrek peered at the little blaze and his slumbering friends around it. “I wish you could help us,” he said, frowning. “Why did you come here today, if not to give us your aid? Surely it wasn’t to welcome me to your mountain. Do you mean to take Avalar home?”
Ponu gazed into his staff’s clear crystal. “Avalar would not wish it. She is the daughter of a former slave. You met him. You know he is dear to me. Avalar’s is the first generation in four hundred cycles not to know what bondage feels like. She will not learn that lesson from me. However, I am concerned, Terrek Florne. Kildoren was correct. The valley you plan to enter may indeed destroy her. I do not mean physically. In her distress, she might not remember to call out for my help, so I am asking you to.”
“You want me to call you?” Terrek glanced at the camp and Avalar’s larger bulk beside the others. Wind lashed the fire he had built, sending a line of sparks skittering over the snow.
“Yes, call my name,” said Ponu, “if ever a time comes when you cannot control her.” He rapped Terrek’s shin, demanding his attention. “You must. If she loses herself, she might not hear your words. A giant fully enraged, her blood running hot in her veins, cannot stop fighting without help.”
Sitting back, Ponu flared his wings for emphasis. “I can restrain her,” he said. “Should her memories take hold, there might be no other way to get her back. Speak my name, and I will come.”
Stiffly Terrek stood. Then once more the wind gusted, snuffing out the little blaze.
✽ ✽ ✽
FOLLOWING WREN’S EXAMPLE, Gaelin guided his shan closer to the wall, positioning himself as far from the steep bank as possible. Beneath his thighs, even his little beast was trembling.
The river seemed endless. As it continued its twisting, downward course, the ice loosened, the rapids roaring through the narrow gorge, frothing white over boulders and trapped debris. The crusty trail cracked under the hooves of the six shan, chips of it splashing among the churning leaves and bits of dirt.
Gaelin shut his eyes as freezing droplets splashed his brow. Clenching Mornius, he leaned against the granite wall close beside him. This was better, he decided. The pain kept him alert, and the rock bruising his skin through his jacket felt solid and secure, so near to the raging beast the river had become.
“We have to keep going!” Terrek called out. “It’s too dangerous to stop here!”
Vaguely, Gaelin nodded. A part of him was drifting again, floating unencumbered among the stars. So much of him yearned for the freedom he missed, to live again as a servant of the universe. He had tried too hard to protect his beautiful sun, reducing himself, failing to destroy his foe . . .
Gaelin screamed as the bank collapsed under his shan. The beast bugled, its powerful hind legs slipping off the edge, its cloven feet kicking wildly. “Help!” Gaelin cried. Reaching with his staff, he leaned over the creature’s straining neck. Then the shan’s front hooves broke through the ice, shattering the surface down its length.
With a terrified warble, the little beast fell.
Gripping Mornius, Gaelin hit the frigid water. His vision went black. He tumbled through thunder and mind-numbing cold. His knees slammed rock, twin jolts of pain.
He caught a quick glimpse of sunlight, the frozen bank flashing by above his head. Someone else was in the river, sprinting fast, large feet thumping through the churning sediment. Desperate for air, Gaelin opened his mouth, choking as gritty water filled his lungs.
Something jerked at his wrist, pulling him hard from the current. Breathless, Gaelin gaped at the world. He was being lifted and carried and then pa
ssed to someone else.
“Here. Stretch him here, Wren!” yelled Terrek. “No, not like that, on his side.”
Slowly Gaelin blinked. Liquid dribbled from his mouth over his cheek. His body jerked as a hand struck him between his shoulders—once, and again. He gagged and coughed hard.
Fingers tugged off his clothes, shifting him this way and that. A thick fur was tucked around his arms and under his chin. Someone was holding him, cradling him.
“You saved his life,” said Terrek. “Thank you, Giant.”
“And you,” Avalar said.
Gaelin lay limp, too cold to move. From in front and behind came voices he knew. His shan lay dead, dispatched by Silva after breaking its back. Avalar had leapt to stop his fall, and Wren Neche had grabbed for his staff a moment later but had missed.
His staff. His body swaying gently, Gaelin frowned up at the giant bearing him. Avalar was losing her fear of his magic. Because of him, she trusted too much.
“Where is his staff?” she queried as if she discerned his thoughts.
“Here,” answered Terrek, slapping his gloved palm against leather. “Wren found it on the ice.”
Avalar plodded on in silence. Gaelin, shivering hard beneath the giant’s furry cloak, pressed his face to her neck. His whole body ached; his knees were on fire, his calves and feet tingling.
“What do you know of his past?” Avalar inquired. She slowed her stride to match Terrek’s shan. “How did you find him?”
Terrek cleared his throat. “I know you wish to be supportive. But you should ask him that question, not me.”
“I mislike this place,” she said. “Here, we would be trapped, should the dach army find us. How far did Kildoren say this trench goes?”
“To the base of the mountain,” said Terrek. “This wall at our flank becomes the river’s high bank. In the spring, when the snow melts, the river swells, and according to the elves . . .”
Through Gaelin’s drowsing, Holram listened, his thoughts on Mornius, his ancient tool. No longer did the staff bind him. He was awake, aware, and able to communicate through his host. Never again would he be helpless. “I am the song,” he whispered.
Song Of Mornius Page 28