Smoothing her robes at her hips, as if to make herself presentable, she limped around the table to stand behind his chair. Zedd felt her hands rest on his shoulders. Unexpectedly, she leaned over and kissed the top of his head and smoothed his unruly hair with gentle fingers. Zedd was relieved the fingers hadn't gone around his throat. He thought they might, after some of the things he had said.
Thank you, my friend, for hearing my tale, and for helping me to find the meaning in it. My Pell would have liked you. You both be men of honor. I accept your word that you will help me tell my Pell.'
Zedd twisted around in his chair and raised his face to her soft smile and kind eyes. 'I will do whatever I can to help you keep your oath. You have my oath on that.'
Her smile widened as she smoothed down a stray lock of his white hair. 'Now. Tell me of the Stone of Tears. We must decide what is to be done with it.'
CHAPTER 23
'The Stone of Tears? Well, it is hidden.'
She gave a single, firm nod. 'Good. It not be something to be loose in this world.' Her brow wrinkled in a little frown. 'It be hidden well? It be safe?'
Zedd winced a little. He didn't want to tell her, he knew what she would say, but he had promised. 'I put it on a chain. Put it on a chain and hung it around the neck of a little girl. I don't know ... exactly ... where she is right now.'
'You touched it!' Adie's eyes widened. The Stone of Tears? You touched it, and hung it around the neck of a little girl!'
She gripped his chin firmly in her suddenly powerful fingers and leaned close to his face. 'You have hung the Stone of Tears, the Stone that it be told was hung by the Creator Himself around the Keeper's neck to lock him in the underworld ... you hung that around a little girl's neck? And let her wander off!'
Zedd scowled defensively. 'Well, I had to do something with it. I couldn't just leave it lying about.'
Adie smacked the palm of her hand to her forehead. 'Just as he makes me think him wise, he shows me he be a fool indeed. Dear spirits, save me from the hands you have placed me in.'
Zedd shot to his feet. 'And just what would you have done with it!'
'Well, I would have certainly given it more thought than you seem to have done. And I wouldn't have touched it! It be a thing from another world!' She turned her back to him, shaking her head and whispering things in her foreign tongue.
Zedd shifted his robes, straightening them with a firm tug. 'I didn't have the luxury of time to give it any thought. We were attacked by a screeling. If I had left it there ...'
Adie spun around. 'A screeling! You be full of good news, old man.' She jabbed a finger against his chest. 'That still be no good excuse. You still should not have ...'
'Not have what? Not have picked it up? I should have let the screeling pick it up, instead?'
'Screelings be assassins. They not be there to take the Stone.'
Zedd jabbed a finger right back at her. 'You know that? Are you so sure? Would you have been willing to have risked everything on it? And if you were wrong, let the Keeper have the Stone to do with as he would? Are you so sure, Adie?'
Her hand dropped to her side as she stared at his frown. 'No. I guess not. It could be as you say. There be a chance the screeling may have taken it. Perhaps you did the only thing you could do.' She shook the finger at him. 'But to hang it around the neck of a little girl ...!'
'And where would you have had me keep it? In my pocket? In the pocket of a wizard? In the pocket of one with the gift, where the Keeper is sure to look first? Or perhaps you would have had me hide it, in a place only I knew, where, if a baneling gets his hands on me and somehow makes me talk, I could tell him it would be, so he could go and collect it?'
Adie folded her arms with a muttered curse. At last her expression relaxed. 'Well... perhaps ...'
'Perhaps nothing. I had no choice. It was an act of desperation. I did the only thing I could do, given the circumstances.'
She let out a tired sigh, then nodded. 'You be right, wizard. You did the best you could have done.' She patted the top of his shoulder. 'Foolish as it be,' she added under her breath. Her hand gave a gentle push. 'Sit. Let me show you something.'
Zedd sat as he watched her limp across the room toward the shelves. 'I would rather have done anything else, Adie,' he said sorrowfully, 'than what I had to do.'
She nodded as she walked. 'I know....' She stopped and turned. A screeling, you say?' Zedd nodded. 'You be sure it be a screeling?' He arched an eyebrow. 'Yes, of course you be sure.' Her brow creased in thought. 'Screelings be the Keeper's assassins. They be singleminded, and extremely dangerous, but they not be very smart. They must have something to show them the one they be after, a way to find them. They not be good at searching in this world. How could the Keeper know where you be? How could the screeling know to find you? Know it be you he be after?'
Zedd shrugged. 'I don't know. I was where the boxes had been opened. But it had been some time since it had happened. There would be no way to know I was still there.'
'And did you destroy the screeling?'
'Yes.'
That be good. The Keeper will not waste the effort to send another, not after you have proven you be able to defeat it.'
Zedd threw his hands up. 'Oh yes, just wonderful. Screelings are sent to eliminate a threat to the Keeper. It was probably sent to rid the Keeper of my meddling, just as the Keeper sent a baneling to rid himself of your interference. You're right: he will not send another screeling, now that I've proven that I can defeat one. He will send something worse.'
'If indeed it be sent for you.' She touched a finger to her lower lip as she mumbled to herself. 'Where be the Stone when you found it?'
'Next to the box that had been opened.'
'And where came the screeling?'
'In the same room as the boxes, as the Stone.'
She shook her head in puzzlement. 'Perhaps it could be as you say, that it came to get the Stone, but it makes no sense for a screeling to come for the Stone. I wonder how he found you.' She limped on toward the shelves. 'Something had to guide him.'
Balancing on her toes, she peered to the back of a shelf, carefully pushing aside various objects, at last retrieving what she sought. Holding it in one hand, she limped back and placed it carefully on the table. It was a little bigger than a hen's egg, round, and age-darkened with a deep patina that was a brownish black in the recesses. It was masterfully carved into the shape of a vicious beast, all balled up, but glaring with eyes that seemed to watch you no matter which way it was held. It looked to be bone, and very old.
Zedd picked it up, testing its weight. It was much heavier than he thought it should have been. 'What's this?'
A woman, a sorceress, gave this to me when I went to her, to learn. She be on her deathbed. She asked if I knew of the skrin. I told her what I knew. She sighed with relief, and then said something that made my skin prickle. She said she had been waiting for me, as the prophecies had told her to do. She placed this in my hand, saying it be carved from the bone of a skrin.'
Adie flicked her hand toward the walls, and then toward the bone pile. 'I have a whole skrin here, among the bones. I did battle with one once, in the pass. His bones be here. His skull be on the shelf. It be the one that fell on the floor.'
She put a thin finger on the carved bone sphere in Zedd's hand as she leaned toward him and lowered her raspy voice. 'This, the old one said, must be guarded, by one who understands. She told me it be of ancient magic, made by wizards of old, possibly with their hand guided by the Creator Himself. Made because of prophecies.
'She said it may be the most important thing of magic I would ever touch. That it be invested with more power than she or I would ever understand. She said that it be of skrin bone, and of skrin force, that it be a talisman that be of importance if the veil ever be in danger.
'I asked how it was to be used, how the magic worked, and how it had come into her hands. She be very exhausted from the excitement of my coming to her, and s
aid she must rest. She told me to come back to her in the morning and she would tell me everything she knew. When I returned, she had died.' Adie gave him a meaningful look. 'Her death be a little too timely to suit me.'
Zedd had had the same thought. 'But you have no idea what it is, or how it is to be used?'
'No.'
Already, Zedd was using magic to lift it on a cushion of air, floating it in space, watching it slowly spin. The whole time the finely carved eyes of the beast peered back as the ball revolved before him. 'Have you tried using any magic on it?'
'I be afraid to try.'
Zedd held his bony hands to each side of the floating carving, probing gently with different kinds of force, different sorts of magic, letting them shift and slide over the round bone, testing, searching gingerly for a crack, a shield, a trigger.
It had the oddest feel to it. The magic reflected back as if it had touched nothing, as if the thing weren't there at all. Perhaps it could be a shield he had never seen before. He increased the force. It slipped against the carving like new shoe leather on ice.
Adie wrung her hands. 'I do not think you should be ...'
The flame of the lamp puffed out. A thin thread of greasy smoke curled from the abruptly dead wick. The room was left to the flickering shadows cast from the fire in the hearth. Zedd frowned at the dark lamp.
A sudden crash brought both their heads jerking around. The skull rolled across the floor toward where they sat. Halfway there, it wobbled and rocked to a stop, right side up. Empty eye sockets stared up at the two of them. Long fangs rested on the wood floor.
The carved bone ball thumped to the table, bouncing twice, as Zedd and Adie came to their feet.
'What foolish thing did you do, old man?'
Zedd stared at the skull. 'I didn't do anything.'
More bones tumbled from the shelves. Bones hanging on the wall clattered to the floor, some bouncing and flipping back into the air as they struck.
Zedd and Adie both turned to a racket behind them. The bone pile rattled apart, bones toppling and spilling over one another as the pile pulled itself apart. Some of the bones, as if alive, slid or rolled across the floor, toward the skull. Sliding along the floor, a rib bone caught the leg of a chair and spun around, but continued on.
Zedd twisted to Adie, but she was hurrying to the shelf above the counter behind the table, the one covered with the blue-and-white-striped cloth.
'Adie, what are you doing? What's going on?'
Bones collected in increasing number around the skull.
She yanked the cloth away, ripping it from its hooks. 'Leave! Before it be too late!'
'What's going on!'
Jars and tins clanged together as she shoved them aside. She pushed her hand farther along the shelf, fingers searching blindly. Canisters thudded to the floor. A jar tumbled out, shattering on the edge of the counter, throwing sparkling shards of glass over the table and chairs. A thick, dark mass from the jar oozed over the edge of the counter, carrying splinters of glass with it, making it look like nothing more than a melting porcupine.
'Do as I say, wizard! Leave! Now!'
Zedd rushed toward her, glass crunching under his feet. He jerked to a halt when he glanced over his shoulder toward the skull.
It was level with his eyes, bones collecting and assembling under it as it rose into the air. A few rib bones ranked themselves, vertebrae slipped into line, talons tipped claws, leg bones erected to the side of each flank. The jaw snapped into place as the skull rose toward the ceiling.
Zedd spun toward Adie, snatched her by the arm, yanking her toward him. She came away from the counter clutching a small tin in her other hand.
'Adie, what's happening!'
Her head tilted up toward the skull brushing the ceiling. 'What do you see?'
'What do I see! Bags, woman! I see a bunch of bones come to life!'
The shoulders of the skrin hunched as the thing grew with the addition of more bones. More yet were sliding across the floor toward it.
Adie gaped at him. 'I don't see bones. I see flesh.'
'Flesh! Bags! I thought you said you killed that thing.'
'I said I battled it. I do not know that a skrin can be killed. I do not think they be alive. You be right about one thing, wizard: since you be able to defeat a screeling, the Keeper sent worse.'
'How did he know where we were? How does the skrin know where we are? All these bones are supposed to hide us!'
'I do not know. I cannot understand how ...'
A skeletal arm swept toward them. Zedd lurched back, pulling her with him. Yet more bones assembled. Adie was frantically unscrewing the tin as he dragged her around the back of the table. The lid came off, dropping to the floor, spinning like a top. The skrin lunged, bringing an arm down. With a loud crack, the table shattered into splinters.
The round, carved ball bounced across the floor. Zedd tried to snatch it with a magic, but it was like trying to pinch a pumpkin seed with greased fingers. He tried to scoop it up with air compressed around it, but it slipped away and rolled into the corner.
The skrin skeleton leapt at them. They both went down in a heap as he yanked her back. Zedd hauled her to her feet as she thrust her hand into the little tin. The skrin was having trouble moving quickly; it had grown too large to fit beneath the ceiling.
The jaws of the beast opened wide, as if to roar. No sound came forth, but Zedd could feel a blast of air. It made their robes flap and fly as if in a wind.
Adie's hand came out of the tin, flinging sparkling white sand at the beast.
Sorcerer's sand. The fool woman had sorcerer's sand.
The skrin staggered back a step, shaking its head. It recovered in an instant, lurching forward again. Zedd unleashed a ball of fire. It passed among the bones to splatter liquid flame against the far wall. The tongues of flame sputtered out, leaving behind a sooty splotch. Zedd tried air, since fire didn't work. It had no effect.
The two of them sidestepped across the room as the beast whirled to attack again. Zedd tried different elements of magic while he pulled Adie along with him. She ignored the danger as she poured the rest of the sorcerer's sand into her hand. When the skrin made another silent roar, she flung the sand with a foreign incantation. The blast of air from the roar died as she spoke the words. The skrin seemed to inhale, taking in the sparkling white sand. The jaws snapped closed as the head drew back.
That be all I have,' she said. 'I hope it be enough.'
The skrin shook its head, then spat out the sand in a cloud of sparkles. It came for them again, but when he tugged on her sleeve she yanked her arm away. Zedd tried sending logs and chairs flying into the bone beast, trying to distract it while she scurried around behind it. They simply bounced off.
Stabbing a hand into a pocket, he brought out a handful of sparkling dust of his own. With a quick flick, he sent it into the center of the bone collection standing before him. It had no more effect than had Adie's sorcerer's sand. Nothing he could do seemed to be much of a distraction, and it soon turned its attention to Adie. She was snatching an ancient bone from the wall. Feathers dangled from one end, strings of red and yellow beads from the other.
Zedd grabbed a bone arm, but the beast flung him away.
As the skrin reeled to her, she shook the bone at the thing, casting spells in her own tongue. The skrin snapped at her. She yanked her hand back just in time to save it, but not the bone talisman. It was splintered in half.
That was it. He had no idea how to fight the thing, and Adie wasn't having any success. He dove under the head toward her, rolling to his feet.
'Come on! We have to get out of here!'
'I can't leave. There be things of great value here.'
'Grab what you can, we're leaving.'
'Get the round bone I showed you.'
Zedd tried to dodge and lunge toward the corner, but the skrin snapped and swept talon-tipped claws at him. He fought back with blasts of every kind of magic he had. Befo
re he realized it, he was losing ground, and had nowhere to retreat.
'Adie, we have to get out now!'
'We cannot leave that bone! It be important for the veil!'
She ran for the corner. Zedd grabbed for her but missed. The skrin almost did, too. It caught her with a claw, ripping a gash down her arm. She cried out as she was flung against the wall, rebounding to sprawl facedown on the floor. More bones crashed down around her.
Zedd caught a handful of the hem of her robe, dragging her back as talons raked the wall, just missing his head. Adie clawed at the floor, trying to get away from him, to get to the round bone in the corner.
The skrin reared back with a silent roar. The ceiling ripped open as the beast stood to its full height. Huge chunks and splinters of wood rained down. Claws raked wildly, tearing the wood of the walls. Fangs ripped at the roof. Zedd pulled Adie toward the door as she fought him.
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