by Renee Wildes
“It branched off the green, in the darkest part of the cavern,” Jem said.
“My son was the first to fall ill,” Tik added.
“And Quark?” Pryseis asked. “Did anyone notice him start to change?”
Jem nodded. “They were the closest to the source.”
“How do you ken that’s what’s doing it?” Ren challenged.
“Let me prove it to you,” Benilo said. He reheated the bucket of water to just short of boiling and tossed it on the wall, burning away a portion of the yellow mold. “Let me remove the spores from your body and see if you feel better. Remove the mold from the wall and see if you feel better.”
“Aren’t you tired of the anger, the sadness?” Pryseis asked. “If we can make it go away and everyone can sleep, why not?”
They muttered amongst themselves, but finally nodded.
The bats warned him first that the raiders returned. Benilo and Pryseis ducked back to let the healed goblins greet their kin and friends.
“Remember, the staff is ‘More’,” Pryseis reminded them. “Whatever you hold in your hearts, it shall reflect. Tik, hold on to your love for Mog. Jem, for your unborn baby. Hold on to your hope for the future. A brighter future for your children. Renounce the darkness. There’s a better way.”
Quark led the way into the cavern, followed by his raiders. Jem slid closer to her mate, Tark. Mog eased aside Tik, who placed an arm around his too-thin shoulders. The elders straightened their shoulders and braced themselves. The raiders laughed amongst themselves, gesticulating with their blood-crusted swords. Someone had paid dearly for the goods loading their packs.
It took a moment for the dimness of their surroundings to register.
“What happened to the light?” Quark demanded.
“It died,” Tik replied. “The waters of the hot spring proved toxic to it.”
She omitted the fact that the water had been superheated and deliberately applied.
Waves of dismay crashed over Benilo from the still-infected raiders, a burst of confusion and temper from the sorcerer.
“Drink!” Quark ordered. Jem brought him a bowl of hukoberry wine, leaving Tark exposed to every gaze.
The calm clarity in his expression registered, and the sorcerer scowled. “What’s this? Why is he unchained?” he demanded. “Seize him!”
Two armed drones stepped forward, as if expecting Tark to attack them. Their fear was a palpable thing. Jem and Tik moved to intercept them.
“Look at him,” Tik said. “Look at us. The fear is gone. The madness is gone.”
“He is free of the sickness,” Jem replied. “We all are.”
The raiders froze. Disbelief…cautious hope. They looked to their elders, who nodded.
“We can sleep again,” Ren confirmed. “The yellow mold was making us sick. We destroyed it.”
Quark speared Benilo and Pryseis with a sharp gaze, full of hate. “Who released the prisoners?”
Ren straightened. “I did. They helped us. We freed them. A straight trade.”
“You healed them?” One of the raiders met Benilo’s gaze.
“I am a healer,” Benilo replied as Pryseis translated. “Pryseis and I came to help Mog with his nightmares. But the cause affected everyone. The cure can affect everyone too.”
The raiders’ jaws dropped at Pryseis speaking recognizable goblin—accent or no accent.
“You can sleep again,” Pryseis added. “No more nightmares.” She indicated Mog. “No more monsters.”
Mog nodded. “She speaks as one of us.”
The raiders muttered amongst themselves. Quark’s face darkened. “He lies! He came to free the faerie and you released her, you traitorous fools! Deceiver!”
“If I wanted to escape with her we would have left long afore now.” Benilo reined in the anger. Now was time to keep a level head.
“Tark murdered Med, or have you forgotten?” Quark sneered. He whirled on Mog. “Tark murdered your father and you free him?”
Mog shook his head. “It wasn’t him. It was the mold, and the staff. We’re tired of being afraid. You need to stop.”
Benilo marveled at the newfound courage of the child, stating what everyone thought but no one had yet voiced.
The staff began to glow. “I rule. You think you’re strong enough to depose me? Try it.”
Ren stiffened. “We tire of your bullying. You abuse your power. You abuse your apprentice. We can trade for light and for other things. No more need die.”
“We’re raiders. Everyone fears us. You’d have us lay down arms, crawl into bed with faeries? With…elves?” The sorcerer made that last word sound like the foulest curse. The staff glowed brighter.
“I think we need healing and a good night’s sleep afore we decide our future,” Tark stated. “The elf and the faerie have given us that. After all we did to them, they stayed to help.”
“Are these the words of a madman?” Jem challenged. “He’s healed, cured. Listen to him. You ken things aren’t right. They haven’t been since our leader—” Another word with new curse implications, “—found the staff and grew the mold. He abused Mog, when our children are our most precious gift—and we let it happen.” Her gaze swept the room. “Are those the actions of normal people? Can’t one of you see?” She curled her thin arms around her bulging stomach.
Tik’s eyes shimmered in the dim light. “He’s my son. I remove him from your care and service. You’re never to touch him again.”
So they had gender, but just didn’t reveal it until they met a compatible mate? Benilo caught the stray thought from Pryseis.
Mog crept behind the sorcerer, his father’s knife raised to strike. “’Tis all his fault! He killed my father!”
“Mog, nay!” Pryseis cried.
What the staff could do with murderous rage…
Quark whirled, staff aimed at the child. The blue-black tip ignited.
Benilo didn’t hesitate. He leaped to grab the staff and wrench it from Quark’s grasp. More ripped through his body—rage at the sorcerer, fear for the child. He fought it. It was an enhancer, a mere tool, neither dark nor light. More… Love. Love for his country, his people. Even love for these people—Mog, Jem, Tik.
Love for Pryseis. His mate. His heart.
Quark howled, but Benilo held. The goblin hissed, throwing the black monster in his face, an image of Pryseis’ torn and broken body at him. It is not real, he reminded himself. She is standing right there. It ended here. He wrenched the staff from the sorcerer’s grip. Mog raised his knife again, and Quark raised his own, more than ready to strike his apprentice down.
The sorcerer’s blade glinted an ominous green.
Fear for Mog spun into terror and dread. Benilo had a blink of time to react. “Stop!” he cried. All the dark emotion flashed into the staff, the tip flared. Benilo’s terror hammered into the goblins’ leader, who threw his knife, convulsed and dropped like a stone.
Mog stumbled over the body whilst everyone stared in shock.
The goblin sorcerer lay dead at his feet, face frozen in a permanent grimace at the heart-stopping surge of terror. Dwarven staff in hand, Benilo stared at the knife buried in his leg, at the body lying on the ground, in shocked disbelief. What had he done?
Chapter Ten
Blood boiled in his veins. His bones melted away in a piercing agony that transcended the word pain. Benilo reached down to pull the knife from his leg, flung it to the floor as his knees buckled. Pryseis screamed, in his ears, in his mind, as she reached to break his fall. Earth and metal echoed though his mind. The troll poison…earth and metal. He tried to summon water and air as a counter, but it felt as if his mind was no longer his own. Pryseis’ tear-stained face blurred. He could not feel her arms around him. So cold.
As cold as death.
Icy radiance surrounded him. A glowing Lady with blowing silver hair stood afore him, her beautiful face set in implacable lines. “What hast thou done?”
“I killed him,” Ben
ilo admitted.
“Thou art healer, not warrior. Thou spoke the vows, lived the life…until now.”
“To save lives.” Benilo tried to justify it. “Quark would have killed Mog.”
“And so suffered the justice of his people.” She glared. “Thou killed needlessly and in so doing broke every vow.”
Well, he was dying, anyway—fitting punishment for a murderer and oath-breaker. A small part of him raged at the injustice of good intentions counting for naught, afore an icy, calm indifference settled over him.
“Thou art a spirit healer no longer. Thy elements art no longer with thee. Thy balance is lost, forever.”
He had only just gotten that balance back. “What of Pryseis, my mate? She needs my elements to survive.”
“She canst return to the pool.”
“But they banished her!”
“Not from the pool.” The Lady waved a hand at him. “Benilo ta Myran, I remove thy elements, thy balance, for thy oath-breaking. Earth, fire and water.”
His soul splintered. A horrific pulling, a chill that froze the blood in his veins. Water and fire, earth and… He froze as the Lady’s words registered. Three out of four. The ultimate imbalance. But air remained. Just air.
Strength flowed into him. There was naught for the poison to affect. Without earth and metal to cling to, the poison vanished.
Banished, stripped of his power and healed…all in the space of a few moments. Benilo could hardly take it in. Was he to live?
Naught but air remained.
“Thou protected a child,” the Lady stated. “The purity in thy heart wast to save a life, thus doth I spare thee.” She neither appeared nor sounded forgiving.
Live with permanent imbalance. Useless. But air remained. Just air. Benilo stiffened and shot his goddess an incredulous glance.
“You made me mage!”
She shrugged. “Thou art still My servant. Thou still hast thy uses.”
“I am too old to be an apprentice!” Dracken rue, Anika would fall over. The ministry would be short a minister. The house of healing would be without their most powerful healer.
“Thou art arrogance itself, to think thy world cannot get by without thee,” She reproved. “Thou hast shown an ignoble lack of patience with thy own apprentice, Prince Brannan. Mayhaps thy new station shall teach thee the humility and tolerance thou hast lost over the years.”
Starting over at the age of twelve hundred and seventeen. Death was preferable.
The Lady glared. “Death is easy.”
“But You condemn Pryseis as well, with me. She has done naught to deserve this.” Tears stung. “She came here to save Mog. She surrendered her life to the spirit-net that held the darkness back from these people. She learned their language. She convinced them to allow the healing, to spare our lives and grant our freedom. For that she is to be condemned to a life of imprisoned isolation? Bound to a location with complete ostracism?” He swallowed down the rage and sorrow. “She would rather die than return to that.”
“Thou shall find a way to address that issue.” The Lady did not relent. “I grant her a new seven-sunrise. Choose wisely.”
Jem and Tik stared at him in shock as Benilo stood. He had returned to the cavern. “You were dead!” Tik’s voice was a rusty squeak, with an edge of hysteria.
Mog reached out to poke him with a bony finger. “Still warm. Not dead.”
Pryseis reached for him with her mind, a brush of shimmering warmth, compassion…and love. “You’re changed.”
He nodded, exhausted beyond words.
“Well, turg,” Ren spat. “Stupid brew doesn’t work on elves.”
Pryseis’ gaze shot amethyst fire at the goblins. “That poison is beneath you! An honorable warrior lives or dies by his skill with weapons. To strike an unsuspecting victim down with poison is a cowardly act. I expect better of you.”
The male and neither drones muttered amongst themselves.
“She’s right,” Mog said. “We should remove all traces of it.”
“We can’t,” Jem disagreed. “’Tis embedded in the metal of the arrowheads.”
Mog turned to Benilo with a hopeful expression. “You can remove it—like the spores.”
Benilo shook his head. “I no longer have that power,” he whispered.
“Then the only way to remove the poison is to destroy the arrows,” Tik said.
“But that would leave us defenseless!” Tark protested.
“And what fool covered all of our arrows?” Jem challenged her mate. “We’ll be weeks making more.”
Footsteps approached from the tunnel by the hot spring, and Benilo watched disbelieving as first Dax, then Brannan, dropped into view.
“Well, turg,” Ren repeated. “Stupid brew doesn’t even work on trolls, either. Burn the cursed arrows.”
“Dax!” Pryseis screamed and ran to jump into her nephew’s arms. “You’re alive!”
Pure relief made the world dim for a moment. Benilo had told her he’d healed Dax, but being able to touch him, to hold him, made it that much more real. Her arms tightened around his thick neck.
“Aunt Pryseis?” he wheezed.
“What?”
“I can’t breathe.”
She realized she was strangling him. “Oh, sorry.” She let go and he lowered her to the ground. Pryseis turned to the other elf, the one whose kelly green gaze seared holes in Dax. “Who are you?”
“Brannan, what are you doing here?” Benilo demanded. “Dracken rue, your brother shall kill us both.”
“We came to rescue you,” Brannan confessed.
Pryseis heart warmed as she turned to Dax. “You did?”
“Acourse.” He glared at her, as if affronted by her doubt. “Rescue,” he bared his tusks at the goblins, “or avenge.” His dark brown gaze swept her naked curves, and his dusky cheeks flushed. “Mother’s love, Aunt Pryseis. What happened to your clothes?” He unfastened his cloak and wrapped it around her, glaring at the elves. “Cease staring at her.”
She almost laughed at his embarrassment.
Brannan crossed the floor to where Benilo swayed on his feet. “What happened to you?” Pryseis saw the shocked disbelief on the younger elf’s face. “She changed you. What happened?”
“I killed him.” Benilo pointed to Quark’s body. “I am spirit healer no longer, your master no longer.”
Pryseis hurried over to Benilo, wrapped an arm around his waist. “Come, love, let’s sit down. ’Tis been a long, busy day.” She glared at Brannan. “Not another word, young one.” She guided her mate down onto the mats at Tark and Jem’s kin space, which happened to be the closest one handy. Mog followed like a stray puppy hoping for a tidbit and a pat. Pryseis smiled at the goblin lad, marveling anew at his newfound freedom and lightness of spirit.
Benilo lay back with a groan, draped his arm across his eyes. She felt his pounding headache, the hollowness in his soul as he struggled to come to grips with the imbalance. He felt almost faerie. All air.
The massive bulk of rock overhead threatened anew to crush the breath from her. How long until the weight of being underground got to him? Pryseis turned to Jem. “Do you have a remedy for a headache?”
Tik was the one who nodded and ran to rummage through one of her baskets. She returned with a cloth bag, pulled out an odorless powder the dull chalky yellow of boiled egg yolks, dumped it in a cup of hot mineral water and stirred.
“I can help,” Brannan offered. He glared at the goblin concoction with suspicion.
“Nay,” Benilo declined.
Pryseis kenned Benilo was not ready to share what he’d gone through with his apprentice. “Let Tik help. Benilo saved her son Mog. She owes him.” She understood the goblin trading concept.
So did Dax. “Stand aside, elf.”
Brannan whirled on him. “Do not dare speak to me, you talishrog. Murderer.”
“Brannan, cease,” Benilo snapped, sitting up and reaching for the cup Tik held. He drank it down. Pryseis cho
ked on an overwhelming urge to gag—the medicine was bitter, even secondhand. But the headache receded almost at once.
The goblins had much to offer the rest of the world—if given half a chance. It they gave themselves half a chance. Pryseis turned to Dax. “What’s going on?”
“This is Prince Brannan,” Dax growled.
“He killed my brother,” Brannan spat.
Enoka Pass. “Benilo?” Pryseis sent a gentle shimmer of peace out to her mate.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, relaxed his muscles as he exhaled. “Brannan is King Loren’s younger brother. Their youngest brother Markale was slain in the Battle of Enoka Pass…by a troll.”
“By Dax,” Pryseis acknowledged. “It was a battle in a war. Dax was fighting for his life. The goblins ran away. The trolls were outnumbered. It was kill or be killed. I’m sorry Brannan lost his brother. I’m not sorry Dax survived. He’s all I’ve got.”
“Asides me,” Benilo corrected. She got a fleeting impression he thought himself a bad bargain afore he blocked the thought.
She hauled him close for a breath-stealing kiss afore everyone. “You are my heart and soul. I have no regrets.”
Aunt Pryseis?” Dax cleared his throat. “Is there something you want to tell us?”
“Life mates? Mage?” Brannan’s jaw dropped. He stared at his—former—mentor in shock. “And they say I get into trouble! No wonder they try not to let you leave.”
“I leave you alone a few days and what happens?” Dax glared at Pryseis. “Bound to an elf?”
Since when had that word become a slur? “Enough!” Pryseis snapped, motioning him and Brannan to sit. “I’m not reenacting a battle scene within my own kin. Benilo is kin, Dax. Get used to the idea.” She translated that into goblin as well.
Dax’s jaw dropped. “You speak goblin?”
“Badly.” She filled him and Brannan in on what happened, and listened whilst he did the same. She then ensured the goblins understood what was being discussed.
Dax shook his head. “So now what?”
“Give me my amulet,” she replied. When he’d handed it to her, she turned to Ren. “Who leads you now?”