Dust of Dreams: Guardians of Light, Book 4

by Renee Wildes

  “Fathoms of caves. Clans group in the rooms, connected by winding passages. They’ve made pets of flying creatures called bats. Small, furred, live on insects and blood. But they’ll warn their goblin masters of any intrusion. Stealth’s impossible.” Dax staggered to his feet, a stubborn set to his square jaw. “I should go with you—”

  New Moon flapped up onto his shoulder and yanked on a long, matted coil of brown hair.

  “Ow!” He reached up to brush her off, and his fingers tangled in the silver chain around his neck. He pulled the crystal butterfly out to give it a hard look, and another uncomfortable expression crossed his face. Dread…and acceptance.

  “What is it?” Benilo asked. He stared at the amulet, then closed his eyes. Mist swirled around him. The amulet rested betwixt Pryseis’ pert breasts…a trickle of sweat slid down her glowing skin. Amethyst eyes, soft with the aftermath of passion, shone above a mouth swollen from his kisses. Lady Goddess, it still seemed so real.

  “Aunt Pryseis said if anything happened to her, I was to go to the elves.”

  Benilo snapped his mind back to the present. Something else about the amulet brushed the edges of his mind, a whisper on the wind not fully formed, reminiscent of the spirit crystal. Anika’s orders to send the wearer of the necklace to her now made sense. “You need to go tell my people what has happened.”

  Dax shook his head. “I was supposed to find you. But you’re here.”

  “And I think Pryseis had other reasons for sending you to my people. I think you should honor her wishes.” Benilo centered himself and reached for King Loren with his mind. “Your Majesty?”

  King Loren’s presence flared, almost as if he had been awaiting Benilo’s mind-call. “Problems, Minister?”

  “I have encountered an emissary of Pryseis. He is to deliver a message to you. He bears the crystal butterfly. Have Anika and Pahn meet him at the border.”

  “What of the mission?”

  “I go into the caverns now. The goblins hold Pryseis and the lad still needs help. I shall be all right. I am not without resources.”

  “Take care, Minister.” King Loren withdrew.

  He was always careful. Benilo met Dax’s gaze. “You must head west to the barrier. You shall be met by two women—an elf and a dwarf. Mages both. They shall take you to the king. There you can deliver Pryseis’ message.”

  “What message?” Dax looked confused.

  “The necklace you wear is more than a pretty bauble. Deliver it to my queen.” Benilo held out a hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Dax gripped it with his own massive paw. “Do not fail her. I swear to you I shall reach Pryseis. She shall not face the darkness alone.”

  Dax’s face tightened. “You have mere days. She must return to the mountain.”

  “Why?”

  Dax hesitated. New Moon jabbed him with her beak. “Ow! Would you cease?” Dax glared at the bird. She hissed at him, a harsh metallic screech, and fluffed up her feathers. “There’s a pool atop Crystal Mountain. Faeries need to drink the elixir once every seven sunrises to survive. Without it, and the sun, she’ll fade away.”

  Benilo sucked in a breath. No sun on her wings, no pool. “Why? Why would she run such a risk?”

  “The lad’s dreams have trapped her too. She must free them both or fall prey to madness. Can you help her?”

  Why else would the Lady Goddess have bound their spirits together—his and Pryseis’? “I believe so. I shall do everything I can,” Benilo vowed. He turned and strode toward the entrance to the caverns, a great looming blackness. Heading straight into an enemy stronghold? He must be mad.

  Chapter Four

  Dax gathered his things under the watchful gaze of the raven. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” he asked. “Someone else to bother?”

  She ruffled her feathers at him.

  “Nay?” Just his luck to be shadowed by a shade. The shamans bespoke communing with the shades of the Otherworld. Not being a shaman, Dax had no idea what she wanted of him. “Shall he succeed?”

  She offered no discernible clue.

  How like a shade to keep her beak still on the important questions. Dax started down the ravine. Follow the rill westward…toward the fearsome barrier of Light encasing the elven realm. He must be mad, heading toward the enemy. He pulled out Pryseis’ charm, studying the crystal which sparkled in the filtered sunlight. A message? What did the elven healer mean?

  That Benilo had healed him was…unsettling. Dax still felt the echo of fierce melting pain, the struggle to breathe as everything seemed turned to liquid. He shuddered. How had the healer reversed the poison and restored his strength? Him. A troll. An enemy. A reluctant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he recalled sending the elf flying with a solid punch. The healer was tougher than he looked.

  He’d have to be, where he was going. Dax glanced at the raven. “I should go with him.” She yanked on another coil of his hair. Hard. He clamped down the curse. At the rate she went, he’d greet the elves bald as a vulture.

  Elves…and a dwarf. There’d been rumors of dwarves aligning with the elves. Mayhaps Pryseis’ visions of peace weren’t out of reach. Dax snorted. Peace. As if centuries of differences would evaporate. He’d fought on the wrong side of Enoka Pass. What would the elves say on that? He still saw the shock in the elven youth’s face as Dax’s thrown spear felled his horse and knocked him to the ground. The fear. The pain as he parried a blow too slowly and Dax cut him down. The fading light…the stillness. Youths weren’t meant for war.

  “‘Do your people wish for naught more than birthing more sons to fight, to bleed, to die?’” Benilo’s question came back to bite him, an echo on Pryseis’ theme.

  The raven launched herself into the air to sail overhead on the wind.

  His stomach rumbled. Somehow he didn’t think she’d allow stopping to hunt. Dax reached back into his pack for a strip of dried swamp buck meat, laced with fat and dried berries. He gnawed on it as he followed the water’s edge. A flash of silvery scales splashed the surface. A fat trout. He’d rather have the trout. Stuffed with spicy hundel roots and wrapped in salty mateska leaves, roasted in the hot coals at the edge of a banked fire for the span of three hundred heartbeats. Dax sighed and glared at the strip of journey-food.

  A red squirrel chattered at him as he passed under the black oak it clung to. Pan fried squirrel with fresh morels…

  Dax growled and chewed his swamp buck. Some days he couldn’t win.

  Pryseis ignored the hunter/killer part of his nature. All the faeries accepted the trolls as they were. But most were uncomfortable around Dax. Being both, yet neither. Neither side, faerie nor troll, was sure what to make of him. Only Pryseis treated him as a person.

  And he’d failed her.

  Dax hiked ever closer to the setting sun, though at the moment ’twas high overhead. An unfamiliar weariness clung to his muscles, an ache as if he’d run too far too fast. An aftereffect from the speed-healing, he supposed. ’Twas better than being dead.

  Every step carried him closer to the elven realm. The enemy.

  Madness.

  His muscles ached as he strode along. The growing weariness tugged at him until he stumbled to a halt, staggering to remain on his feet. The raven came to roost on his shoulder as he cursed his weakness and rubbed the cramping muscles through his leather breeches. Cursed the goblins. Why would they develop a poison for trolls? Did they strike him to collect Pryseis…or was there a darker purpose? Did they want to see if it worked? Why were they out to kill the trolls after all this time?

  Icy fear struck him. They’d grabbed Pryseis. What if they were after the faeries…the pool? What better way than to eliminate the guards first? The faeries were peaceful, defenseless. Acourse the treacherous goblins struck down stronger opponents with poison!

  He pushed himself to resume moving. Darkness forced him to stop, taking his rest against a fragrant spruce tree. He dared not risk a fire, so he wrapped himself up in his blanket and
gnawed on another strip of travel-meat. It barely dented his hunger. His body screamed for him to replace the lost energy, but he had to conserve. Who kenned how long they must last?

  What if the elves refused him entry? What if they took him prisoner? Tales abounded of what the murderous elves did to prisoners. He shuddered. What if they were true? What if but a fraction of them were true?

  And yet, one of those “murderous elves” had healed him. Not just kept him alive long enough for questioning, but healed him. At considerable risk to himself. Dax kenned somehow healing him had weakened Benilo, but the elf had done it anyway.

  Would he have done the same had their positions been reversed?

  Dax closed his eyes at that uncomfortable reflection and tried to sleep.

  The raven tugged at his hair as soon as ’twas light enough to see. Every muscle protested as he rose to his feet. He had to go on, for Pryseis’ sake…and now Benilo’s. They counted on him. He closed his hand around the crystal butterfly and vowed not to let them down.

  Unless the elves killed him when he arrived.

  Benilo wouldn’t send him to his death after going through all the trouble of healing him.

  Would he?

  Mother’s Love, he was hungry.

  Pines and oak gave way to birch, and he entered a fragrant rolling meadow which stretched as far as he could see. Dax bent over, trying to stretch his cramped and knotted calf muscles. The raven soared overhead, cawing. Dax staggered on.

  He felt the barrier afore he saw it. A vibrant, pulsing warning. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck rose in protest. Every nerve screamed at him to turn back.

  This was the most foolish thing he’d ever done. He grasped the butterfly amulet like a talisman. “Dax, promise me…if aught goes wrong, if I’m captured or disappear, promise to seek aid from the elves.” Pryseis kenned what she was doing. She depended on him to do this.

  They awaited him, the elves. He counted two blond warriors on horseback, and two women who radiated power. Magic-power, like the faeries. One of the two women was a dwarf. So rumor was true. The dwarves had aligned themselves with their age-old enemies, the elves. Mayhaps Pryseis’ dream wasn’t so impossible.

  Aye, and the sun now rose in the west and set in the east.

  “Remove thy weapons!” one of the warriors called.

  Dax laid his knives on the ground, watching in disbelief as they dissolved to dust.

  “Show me the butterfly,” the white-haired elven woman ordered.

  The crystal shone in the sun, a beacon of hope.

  “What be Pryseis to thee?” she asked next.

  “My father was her brother. Benilo sent me.”

  She stepped forward through the barrier, with the dwarf. “I be Minister Anika and this be Pahn. For the sake of Benilo and my old friend Pryseis, I welcome thee as a messenger.”

  Messengers had immunity from hostilities, were granted clemency and not held responsible for the message they carried. Messengers were temporary, honored guests. They were granted quarters, baths, healing.

  They were fed.

  Dax swayed on his feet.

  Minister Anika took his hand. Hers felt small and fragile as a wren, but her sharp gaze flashed fierce as an eagle. “Half forest troll, half dream faerie. The barrier was keyed to keep out trolls and goblins. Thy faerie half should be able to make it through, with my help. But it shall hurt.”

  One of the mares snorted. Those cursed hateful war mares with their lethal hooves.

  Pryseis and Benilo counted on him.

  Dax stepped forward, into the searing Light. Every nerve flayed, his blood boiled, his bones melted. A voice screamed in his head, but he had not the strength for a single whimper. His hearts stuttered in his chest. He forgot to breathe. Then ’twas over as he stepped clear on the elven side and everything went black.

  Awareness of the world returned and he looked up into Minister Anika’s compassionate face, framed by long white hair.

  “Thou art stronger than thou look,” she stated, tucking a soft woolen blanket about his shoulders.

  Stronger? He couldn’t even move. He heard the clacking of a beak and saw his feathered guide perched on Pahn’s shoulder. The raven looked ridiculously large aside the stocky dwarf.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the council chambers. We hath quarters being made available to thee and a healer on standby.” The warriors carried him, their mares acting as point and rear guards, the mages on either side of the stretcher. So much to see, ask, but he struggled to stay awake. He barely noticed when they settled him onto some kind of long, padded chair which wasn’t quite a bed.

  An elven male, grown but only just, rested his hand against Dax’s forehead. Warmth flowed through Dax, chasing away the exhaustion and weakness, replacing it with clarity and strength. Healer.

  “He has seen Benilo. Let me clean him up. Then Lord Elio may question him.”

  “We posted a guard outside,” Pahn commented as they left.

  The elf snorted and offered a hand to Dax. “My name is Brannan. Let me get a bath going for you. I ordered food and water brought, also.”

  Dax’s stomach rumbled as Brannan helped him to his feet.

  Brannan grinned. “I wager you weary of travel food. I saw the strips in your pack. We can do better than that.” He disappeared into another room, and Dax heard running water. Clouds of herb-scented steam roiled out of the chamber.

  Dax hadn’t had a truly hot bath since his mother died—when he was a child. Many things had changed after his parents had died.

  Brannan emerged. “I left drying cloths and clean clothes. I shall check on the food.”

  Dax eased into steaming-hot oily water which smelled somewhere betwixt fern and pine, a comforting deep-forest scent. He scrubbed away layers of weariness and grime, and his spirits lifted a bit with hope. He got out when his stomach rumbled anew. Draining the tub, he dried and dressed. Reentering the main room, he froze at the familiar scent of the food.

  Baked trout, stuffed with hundel roots and wrapped in mateska leaves? How had they kenned? There was hot flaky bread, butter and honey, steamed fiddleheads and fresh pears. What elven magic provided fiddleheads and pears in the same season? Fiddleheads were in season. Pears weren’t until autumn. Yet here were both on the table. His mouth watered and his stomach rumbled, but the fleeting thought—mayhaps the food was poisoned or drugged—made him hesitate.

  Brannan shook his head and helped himself to a portion of everything. “We mean you no harm. Eat.” He poured himself a cup of water and took a drink. “It is but simple food and water.”

  Dax threw him a cautious glance and sat at the table. The trout melted on his tongue. The door opened whilst he ate, admitting a grim-faced old elf whose rigid, martial presence screamed “warlord”.

  “Lord Elio.” Brannan scrambled to his feet.

  “Sit.” Lord Elio pinned Dax with a piercing ice blue stare. “So, thou wert in dire straits when Benilo found thee.”

  “Goblins ambushed us.” Dax took another bite of bread.

  “Goblins and trolls ally against us. I have fought both many times.”

  Dax shook his head. “They betrayed us. We guard faeries, don’t deal with goblins.”

  “Thou art no troll.”

  “Half, on my mother’s side. My father was brother to Pryseis.”

  “Was?”

  “Dead, both.”

  “I am sorry for your loss,” Brannan offered.

  “Pryseis is all I have left. She’s in danger. We must help her.”

  Lord Elio studied him. “Why art thou here?”

  “Benilo went after Pryseis, into goblin territory. They go to help a child, but the goblins attacked and took Pryseis prisoner. Benilo walks into a trap. We must rescue them.”

  Brannan paled. “I am Benilo’s apprentice. If my master is in peril, we must go to his aid.”

  Minister Anika and Pahn entered the room, with another woman with long r
ed hair. Her regal beauty struck Dax a solid blow. He choked on rising lust and forced his body to behave. He’d never met a woman who wielded that level of allure. What was she?

  The red-haired woman glared at him with fierce, gold eyes. The torque around her neck glittered, its red stone gleaming with an almost ominous dark light. “Show me the amulet.”

  Uncertain of her, he removed the silver chain and handed it to Minister Anika. The elven mage wrapped her fingers about it and, with a wind chime whisper, the crystal butterfly flared with iridescent bursts of color. A shimmering image of Pryseis stood in the center of the room.

  The bread dropped from Dax’s nerveless fingers.

  “Anika, my old friend—” The “ghost” of Pryseis smiled, “—’tis been too long. I kenned Dax wouldn’t fail me. Things are changing in the Shadowlands. The dwarves align with you elves, the trolls align with us faeries. People tire of war. They look for a better way. The time is ripe for change…for peace. I go to help a goblin child, whose nightmares escape even our nets. Who kens what gratitude his salvation might bring? Shall you join me in working for peace?”

  The image faded with the echo of “peace” swirling about the room.

  The redhead looked thoughtful and speared Dax with a glance so sharp he squirmed like a fly on a pin. “What of their attack on you? That hardly seems peaceful.”

  “Just because everyone else wants peace, doesn’t mean the goblins do,” Pahn muttered.

  Dax chose his words with care. “They struck me with a poison meant to kill trolls. Only my faerie blood held on long enough for Benilo to reach me.”

  “Did they mean to kill thee to take Pryseis, or use thee to see if it worked, the poison they brewed?” Lord Elio mused.

  Scary how the elven warrior’s thoughts mirrored his own.