The Ancient One

by T.A. Barron

  At that instant, Kate plowed into his side with the spear, throwing all her weight into the charge. Sanbu roared in pain, dropped the hatchet, and staggered backward. He tripped over one of the sitting stones and fell into the fire. With a shriek, he rolled out of the coals and struggled to pull the spear from his ribs.

  At the sight of Sanbu tumbling into the fire, the man he had struck only a few moments before cried out in fear and ran down the ridge as fast as he could. Meanwhile, Laioni and Jody battled together against another warrior, their three arms against his two, wrestling with him on the rocky terrain. Kandeldandel, having regained his feet, danced just out of reach of a stocky, muscular man who now wielded the hatchet. Nearby, Monga fought desperately with the bigger dog. They rolled across the ground in a snarling tangle of brown fur.

  Kate seized the opportunity to search for the walking stick. She turned toward one of the two brush huts and dashed to the entrance. Kneeling, she peered inside the dimly lit enclosure, searching for the Stick of Fire.

  As she knelt down, another warrior appeared from his hiding place behind a lichen-streaked boulder. He raised his bow, drew back the string, and shot an arrow directly at Kate’s back. His aim was good, and the arrow whizzed straight toward the unsuspecting target. It plunged into the blue day pack and smacked against the metal thermos still within, knocking Kate on her face with the force.

  Saved by the thermos, she rose unharmed. She pulled the arrow out of the pack and stared at it, aghast. Silently, she thanked Aunt Melanie for packing the hot chocolate. She peered out the entrance, but could not see the marksman.

  Mustering her courage, she darted over to the other brush hut. This time she threw herself inside before anyone could attack from behind. Scanning the interior, she spied a familiar shape in the shadows. She lunged for it, grasping the shaft in her hand—only to discover it was just another spear. She threw it aside, heart pounding like the warrior’s drum. Where is that stick? She hoped it was not already in Gashra’s hands.

  In a gesture of hopelessness, she threw back her head and took a deep breath. Two yellow dots gleamed at her from the ceiling of the hut. The walking stick! Hidden in the brush above her head, it was nearly invisible but for the carved owl’s head handle. Kate reached upward and yanked it free, just as a powerful hand grasped her ankle and dragged her violently out of the hut.

  The warrior whose arrow had missed its mark stood above her, glowering. Now brandishing a knife instead of a bow, he suddenly kicked hard at her head. Kate dodged the blow and jumped to her feet, still holding the walking stick. As the man spun around to face her, she swung the stick with all the force of a home run hitter, connecting with a thud on his left eye. The blow sent him reeling backward. But before Kate could recover her balance, another hand grasped the shaft.

  “Sanbu!” she cried, as the warrior’s angry eyes, roiling with rage, met her own.

  He tried to jerk the stick away, but Kate held fast. Then she did the only thing she could think of doing: She bit, and hard. Sinking her teeth into Sanbu’s sweaty wrist, she closed her jaw with all her strength.

  “Eeaaaah!” he shouted, smashing his fist against Kate’s shoulder.

  Pain seared her upper back, but still she hung on. Again Sanbu struck, this time on the back of her neck. She bit with all her energy, translating her pain into force.

  Sanbu suddenly abandoned his grip on the shaft and pulled back his hand, wrenching her neck sideways. As Kate toppled to the ground, he reached to pick up a spear, blood streaming from the wound in his side. Lifting the spear high, he screamed vengefully as he prepared to end her life.

  Just then, Laioni hurled herself directly into his chest. “Run!” she cried to Kate. “Escape while you can.”

  Sanbu threw Laioni to the ground and stabbed fiercely at her with his spear. Before Kate could even rise to her feet, he sliced into Laioni’s thigh, cutting her deeply. Again he raised the spear, cursing wrathfully at this Halami girl who dared to challenge him.

  At that moment, Monga released his death grip on the throat of the large dog. He backed away, staggered, and fell, then lifted himself weakly. One ear hung badly torn, while his right front leg dragged useless along the ground. Seeing Laioni’s peril, he forced himself to bound across the camp. Just as Sanbu was about to drive the spear into her chest, he leaped at the warrior with his last particle of strength.

  As Sanbu shrieked, Monga clamped his jaws around the man’s neck. Sanbu fell backward, struggling to pull the dog away. But Monga held firm.

  Kate glanced in the direction where she had last seen Jody and Kandeldandel, but saw no sign of them. She stepped to Laioni’s side and helped her to stand, though her leg bled profusely. Together, they stumbled away from the camp, climbing higher on the ridge. Using the walking stick as it was meant to be used, she steadied herself against the increasing weight of Laioni’s body.

  “Leave me,” rasped Laioni. “Leave me or they’ll catch us. I’m too weak to go on.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” declared Kate, leaning her against an angular boulder. Ripping the purple kerchief from her hand, she wrapped it tightly around the slashed leg to slow the bleeding.

  Laioni whispered, “Go on, please. They’ll kill you too.”

  “You’re not going to die,” retorted Kate. Gazing at the camp below, she saw Sanbu and Monga still rolling on the ground, locked in deadly combat. Yet she could see no one else. Where were Jody and Kandeldandel? And the other warriors?

  All at once, the pale early-morning light swiftly dimmed. Kate turned toward the sky to see legions of dark clouds gathering overhead. A stiff breeze, cold as ice on her face, swept across the ridge. The few shrubs and grasses sprouting from between the scattered rocks bent savagely under the weight of the wind. Then came the first rumble of thunder, echoing ominously over the face of the mountain.

  Laioni suddenly started to slump forward. Barely catching her before she fell, Kate draped the unconscious body across her own shoulders, grabbed Laioni’s dangling arm, and lifted her in a fireman’s carry. She straightened up with difficulty, feeling the weight in her knees and lower back. But where to go? She could not carry such a burden very far. She only knew she needed to find some sort of shelter, away from the oncoming storm and any of Sanbu’s men who might try to track them.

  Straining to see in the limited light, Kate’s eyes roamed past the camp, across the rocky scree, and into the high reaches of the forest. There the shrunken and twisted trees, though deformed by endless winds, might offer some protection. Farther down the slope stretched the forest itself, visible now only as a sweeping sea of deep green, but for one nearby valley that was utterly dark. Beyond the forest, she could barely make out the towering cliffs of Lost Crater.

  A blast of lightning sizzled across the sky. In the momentary light, Kate glimpsed two men, one carrying a spear, standing amidst the boulders just above the camp. They surveyed the ridge, searching for something.

  Immediately, Kate turned to climb. Height was now her only hope for escape. Even with the help of the walking stick, Laioni’s weight made progress very difficult. Yet she forced herself, laboring mightily, to ascend the rocky ridge. It did not occur to her that every step brought her closer to the lair of the Wicked One.

  25

  the sacrifice

  HIGHER Kate climbed, step by arduous step. Laioni’s body sagged heavily on her shoulders, causing her to stop regularly to catch her breath. After resting only a few seconds, she continued up the slope, panting in the thin air.

  She constantly craned her neck, scanning the ridge for any sort of hiding place that might shield them from the sharp eyes of Sanbu’s warriors, let alone Sanbu himself if he survived Monga’s attack. Yet she saw no sign of shelter, only an increasingly jagged jumble of gray granite and white quartz. Even the shriveled shrubs grew fewer and fewer, requiring something more receptive than solid stone to sink their roots.

  A clap of thunder exploded, and with it came the first splattering
of sleet upon the rocks. Kate positioned herself on a flat, oblong stone and swung around to view the camp below. But heavy gray clouds now rolled across the ridge, and she could see nothing beyond the approaching storm.

  As she turned back toward the high shoulders of the mountain, a sudden flash of lightning burst against the boulders just to her right. She leaped instinctively to the side and, in doing so, lost her footing. She tumbled with Laioni onto the rocks, her shout overwhelmed by a new pounding of thunder.

  As she rolled to her knees, the dark clouds opened fully, showering the slope with a freezing downpour of sleet and hail. By the time she could crawl to Laioni’s side, hailstones dotted her twin ropes of black hair. It took all of Kate’s strength to lift her again. Standing unsteadily, she straightened her back against the frigid gusts of wind.

  Another simultaneous blast of lightning and thunder crashed across the slope, nearly knocking her down again. In the wavering light she spied a shallow overhang of rock nearby. It looked barely big enough to cover the two of them, but she knew there was no other choice. Tottering across the slippery slope with the help of the walking stick, she carried Laioni to the overhang. Kneeling, she wedged Laioni into the deepest recess under the gray stone slab and slid herself, exhausted, beside her.

  The hail gathered swiftly on the stones outside their shelter. Soon the rocky expanse of the ridge was transformed into a sheet of white ice. The air grew bitter cold, and Kate realized that she could see the puffs of her own breath. Laioni’s breathing, though, she could not see at all. Placing her hand against the Halami girl’s mouth, she felt just the barest hint of warmth, and that only at irregular intervals.

  “Laioni,” she cried, shaking her friend by the shoulders. “Laioni, don’t die. Please don’t die.”

  She laid her hand against Laioni’s leather bib, on the same spot where she felt a heart beating strongly not long before. “You promised,” she pleaded. “Remember? You promised.”

  Tears brimmed in Kate’s eyes, even as she started to shiver from the cold. Feeling her fingers going numb, she thrust them under her armpits for warmth. Her neck and shoulders ached, both from Sanbu’s blows and from the weight of the burden they had carried so far up the rocky ridge. She examined the blood-soaked kerchief tied around Laioni’s thigh. The bleeding had halted at last, but that meant nothing if now she died from exposure to the elements.

  Kate touched Laioni’s pale cheek with two throbbing fingers. To her shock, she discovered that the cheek felt even colder. As the wind whipped across the slope, driving the hail into wavelike drifts, she pulled off the day pack and removed her sweatshirt. Frantically, she tried to wrap it like a blanket around Laioni. Yet she knew it would do little to slow the deadly process. She remembered Aunt Melanie telling her the tragic story of a young couple, married not yet one week, who froze to death in a sudden storm on Brimstone Peak. Rescuers found them several days later, huddled together, inseparable in death as in life.

  Laioni shivered all at once as if having a seizure, which caused her head to fall forward. Kate, herself shivering in her T-shirt, raised the heavy head again. She noticed once more how much this girl from another time looked like Aunt Melanie, even with her eyes closed. Was this how Laioni’s life would end? Frozen to death on the side of a mountain?

  Kate bit her lip at the thought. It’s so cold—cold. She’s going to d-die unless I can do something. Sh-she’s going to d-d-die.

  The storm swirled across the ridge with increasing fury. Kate listened in vain for some slackening in the wintry wind. But the wind howled incessantly, stealing what flickering flame of life remained in the girl by her side.

  Monga knew, thought Kate. He knew that someone’s death was near. But did he know it was Laioni’s? She struck her knee angrily with her fist. It’s too soon for her to die. Too soon!

  She observed Laioni’s face, now frosted with hundreds of tiny hairs of ice. Her lips looked like gray-blue granite, her skin like shadowy storm clouds. If only I could build a fire. Then at least she’d have a chance. Glancing at her own sneakers, Kate wondered whether they might burn. No, too wet. And besides, she had no matches. She didn’t even have a pair of sticks to rub together, as Laioni had done in the forest.

  Another series of shivers rattled Laioni. Kate moved still closer to her chilled body, enveloping her with her own bare arms. Her eyes, blurring with tears of pain and helplessness, fell to the walking stick. Frost partially covered the shaft, obscuring the symbols carved into the wood. The eyes of the handle stared icily back at her. So this is Laioni’s fate, she said to herself bitterly. This is what happens to She Who Follows the Owl. She wanted to learn the true meaning of her name, and it is Death. If only I could make a fire. If only…

  She blinked, focusing again on the stick. The Stick of Fire. What was it the Chieftess believed? Something to do with the name. Then she remembered: It will burst into flames when so commanded by its rightful owner.

  No, she told herself. Forget it. Forget the whole idea. Besides, the rightful owner was Aunt Melanie, and she was as far away as ever. Even if Kate herself were the rightful owner, burning the stick would throw away her sole chance of ever seeing her great-aunt again.

  Yet, could it be that some small part of Aunt Melanie might reside right here in this Halami girl? Whether or not a traceable connection between them existed, Kate knew that wasn’t the point. She had begun to feel that all living things are linked, often in ways impossible to see. Perhaps in some mysterious way she herself was more connected than she could ever know to Laioni, somehow tied to an unknown people from an unremembered time.

  She reached for the walking stick, then caught herself. Hold fast to your stick of power, the Chieftess said at their parting. It is your only hope, and ours as well. Her only hope of returning to her own time. Her only hope of helping Aunt Melanie. Her only hope of saving the Ancient One.

  Filled with uncertainty, she touched the stick with the tip of one finger. Do not do this lightly, rang the voice of the Chieftess, for it will destroy the stick and all its powers.

  Again Laioni’s frame convulsed in a sudden shiver.

  Kate seized the stick and brought it close to her face. “Burn,” she said in a low voice. “Burn if you can, Stick of Fire.”

  Nothing happened. The icy wind screamed across the frigid ridge, mocking her act of desperation. Kate listened, then realizing the futility of her attempt, threw the stick to the ground. It clattered on the hail-coated rocks by her feet.

  Then, so slowly as to be almost imperceptible, the yellow eyes of the handle began to glow strangely. A thin plume of smoke started to curl upward from the middle of the shaft, and the hailstones beneath the stick hissed in contact with some new source of heat. Soon, an ellipse of melting ice formed around the walking stick, while water dripped along the edges of the stones.

  Kate watched with a mixture of hope and grief as the Stick of Fire ignited. With growing intensity, strange white flames flickered along its length, licking the wood eagerly, burning away the ancient images of the Tinnani Old Tongue. As fiercely as the blizzard blew beyond the overhang, it could not snuff out this crackling fire.

  The walking stick burned vigorously, swelling in strength, until Kate’s feet and legs began to feel progressively warmer. She leaned Laioni closer, so that she would be warmed but not singed by the heat. So brilliant were the flames, as if their source were not a stick but a star, she could not look directly into them without scalding her eyes.

  Gently, very gently, she lay Laioni’s head upon her shoulder so that she might hear her breathe above the continual wailing of the wind. And then she waited.

  26

  dying flames

  FOR several hours, the tempest raged. Hail and sleet surged across the mountainside. But for the circle of bare rock surrounding the overhang where a small fire burned brightly, the entire ridge wore a cloak of white ice. Kate, exhausted from the long trek and fierce battle, basked in the warmth of the flaming stick until at las
t she dropped off into a fitful sleep.

  She woke with a start. Laioni’s head now lay on her lap, the Stick of Fire still burning at their feet. Her heart leaped to see the ruddiness returned to Laioni’s complexion. Touching her cheek gently, Kate felt again the warmth and life of her loyal friend. Amidst all that she had lost, all that she had left behind, at least this one thing had been saved.

  She’s alive. Kate savored the words, leaning her head back against the rock. Laioni is alive.

  Yes, her sober inner voice replied, but what good will it do? Laioni would survive the storm, and even now slumbered peacefully on her lap. Yet the powers of Gashra continued undiminished. Aided by the Broken Touchstone, he would surely press ahead with his plans to devour the forest and destroy any creatures who dared to stand in his way. Her sacrifice, quite probably, was in vain. Most likely Laioni was spared only to fall some other day.

  At least, Kate assured herself, there was this silver lining: The Stick of Fire will not fall into the hands of Gashra. He can never use it to find the missing Fragment. He can never heal the Broken Touchstone, augmenting his already terrible power. That much, at least, Kate had denied him, even if she had denied herself in the process.

  Looking into the dancing white flames, Kate marveled at how evenly and strongly the stick blazed, yet with only a tiny trace of smoke. Never had she seen any light so intense, except perhaps in the eyes of Nyla, smallest of the Stonehags. Even in its final act of self-destruction the stick displayed deep power. Although the shaft lay largely disintegrated, the coals burned on with vigor. She knew they would continue to flame for some time. The carved handle, though completely charred, burned more slowly than the rest, so that the head of Chieftain Solosing de Notnot, creator of the Stick of Fire, remained recognizable. That’s appropriate, thought Kate. The Chieftain’s image will be the last part of the stick reduced to cinders, his yellow eyes aglow to the very last.