“How could she do such a thing?” Ard asked, echoing her thought. “It’s mad.”
A vision of light came to Karigan, and of lips murmuring, You cross thresholds. It blurred away as quickly as it had come.
“I cannot say,” Graelalea replied. There was a note in her voice, barely perceived, that Karigan took to mean that Graelalea knew very well how such a thing could happen, but she was not allowed or able to say more, or simply did not wish to.
Figures, Karigan thought. There were never firm answers where Eletians were concerned. There were no absolutes in their world. A terrible headache pounded at her temple, and she was so very cold. Just like the last time she’d traveled.
She squirmed, realizing her head was cradled in someone’s lap. She squinted her eyes open and saw Yates’ concerned face over hers.
“Karigan?”
“I’m fine.” her voice sounded dull to herself. “Just cold.”
“Stoke up the fire,” Graelalea told someone, “and bring blankets.” She spoke rapidly in Eletian, then knelt beside Karigan. “You were caught between the two times. If you’d crossed over, I am not sure you could have come back.”
“Mornhavon was there. He reached for me.”
Graelalea sat back, her eyes wide and frightened. “Then we came closer to losing you than I thought.”
Karigan felt Yates go rigid. “What were you doing mucking about with Mornhavon?” His words came as a shout.
“I wasn’t doing anything. It just happened.”
“The piece of time is only supposed to allow one to view a moment,” Graelalea murmured. “But you who have crossed through the layers of the world before should be more wary.”
Karigan wanted to protest, but she was just too tired. Graelalea then pressed a cool sphere into her hand and light flickered. Her moonstone.
“You do not want to lose this,” the Eletian said quietly.
Karigan was bundled in blankets and helped to the fireside. She shuddered as she looked into the flames.
“What is it?” Yates asked.
“I saw the people who lived here running for their lives from groundmites. The valley was burning.”
Graelalea knelt down beside her. “Yes. It was the way many settlements ended when Mornhavon invaded Argenthyne. Here.” She handed Karigan a silver flask. “A couple of sips and you should feel much better.”
It was a warming cordial that flooded her veins to her very toes and fingertips, chasing away the chill brought on by the passage through vast amounts of time. After her second sip, she felt much more herself, the headache miraculously gone, though the traveling had left a dark imprint in her mind.
“Thank you,” she said, returning the flask to Graelalea.
“You faded out,” Yates told her. “You were a ... a ghost. And we could see faint images moving around you, like the mist taking shape. And the light your moonstone raised—I still can’t see right.” He rubbed his eyes.
Karigan just gazed into the fire unable to speak, overwhelmed by it all. She’d seen the destruction of Telavalieth centuries ago, and Mornhavon.
Someone stood between her and the fire. Karigan looked up. it was Spiney. He squinted down at her as if trying to see into her. “There are those in Eletia who believe you are dangerous,” he said. “They are not mistaken.” He turned abruptly on his heel and walked away.
He was not the only one giving her odd looks. From across the fire, Ard studied her while absently whittling a stick. When he realized she’d caught him watching, he averted his gaze.
“Rider,” Grant said, “I’ll take the rest of your watch. You should probably rest after whatever the hells that was.”
With the dark rings beneath his eyes and the hollowness to his cheeks, Karigan did not think she was the one requiring rest, but she did not argue. She slipped into her tent, relieved just to escape the scrutiny of her companions.
TELAVALIETH
Mornhavon the Black had climbed these very stairs. Karigan had seen it. She’d been there. He’d stepped onto the terrace and reached for her. Even in the dawn of the morning after, as she gazed down at the stairway that descended into the fog of the valley, the incident was still so real, so present, she could almost feel Mornhavon’s touch on her flesh. She shuddered.
With one last glance at the moondial, she followed Yates down the stairs, backtracking Mornhavon’s own footsteps.
Blackveil was as dismal this day as those preceding it, but it darkened even more as they left the high ground and entered the fog of the valley. The stones that made the steps were either naturally level or hand carved, but covered with the sopping mosses and lichens that made everything so slick. Some rattled when stepped upon. A few were missing entirely, lost somewhere down the slope, forcing the company to scramble to the next solid step, their feet sending loose scree cascading into the valley.
There were several switchbacks, but the continual descent made Karigan’s knees ache, so she relied on her bonewood staff to buffer the impact of each downward step she took.
Yates stumbled ahead of her.
“You all right?” she asked him.
He only grunted in response.
Karigan thought about lending him her staff when he paused a few times as if to gauge how to proceed to the next step. He’d then continue, but tentatively, clinging to trees as he went down, or leaning into boulders alongside the stairway. His hesitation caused some grumbling from those waiting behind.
As they neared the bottom, the fog created a false dusk, but Karigan perceived a change in the terrain. The stairs meandered through a field of vast boulders, which must have tumbled down the slope in some long ago time, for they were well settled and blanketed by deep moss. Ferns the size of small trees protruded between the boulders, their blotched and blackened leaflets sutured together with the strands of spiderwebs. Wiry beards of lichen draped down from the branches above, which those ahead slashed out of their path. It was as if they entered an ever more primeval world.
“Thank the gods,” Yates muttered when they finally reached level ground. Karigan was relieved herself.
Graelalea did not pause to give them a rest, however. They continued along a path that was more mud and ooze than anything else, the ferns rising around them like a forest. Soon they came to a sludgy stream and followed its bank for a while. Pitcher plants grew alongside it, but not the normal sized, diminutive ones Karigan was accustomed to. These, like the ferns, were oversized vessels the size of wine casks.
One of the pitcher plants quivered. The hind legs of some mammal, like a hare, kicked over the lips of the carnivorous plant, unable to free itself. Karigan looked away, sickened.
“You know,” Ard said, “it all sort of works.”
“What does?” she asked.
“The forest. It is in balance with itself, the predators and the prey. Even the plants have adapted to it.”
“You’re saying the forest is healthy?”
“It’s a twisted place for certain,” Ard replied, “yet it is in balance with itself. Perhaps in time it would come to resemble more of what we’re familiar with on our side of the wall.”
As long as Mornhavon doesn’t come back, Karigan thought.
“The balance is wrong on both sides of the wall,” Spiney said from the end of the line. “All the etherea trapped here, and barely any on the other side. This is not balance.”
“What d’ya want then?” Ard asked acerbically. “To knock down the wall?”
They waited for Spiney’s answer. Karigan knew it was exactly what some Eletians wanted, possibly including Spiney, who had once tried to kill her for, in his opinion, interfering with the wall. The Eletian, however, did not respond.
Graelalea halted, and before them was a delicate span that crossed the stream. To Karigan’s eyes the arch was almost paper thin, entirely unlike any other bridge she’d ever seen, without voissoires or keystone, without spandrel or abutment walls, just the treadway, impossible and eloquent in its simplicity.
It was carpeted and draped with moss so it was impossible to see how it was made, but if it was stone, it surpassed even the legendary craft of the D’Yers.
“Telavalieth lies across the stream,” Graelalea said. “Or what remains of it.” Without another word, she stepped onto the bridge.
Karigan expected the bridge, fragile as it looked and subject to the ravages of centuries, to collapse, but it did not. The rest of them followed, and when Karigan reached the apex of the arch, she was glad the bridge still stood, for she would not have liked crossing through the stream. It was murky and stank of rot, and several glistening snakelike somethings slurped in the stagnant water. She hastened the rest of the way to the opposite bank.
“What do you suppose that was in the water?” she whispered to Yates.
“I didn’t see anything,” he replied with a frown.
They trudged onward and soon Karigan discerned an opening before them, a lighter shade of gray. The Eletians took off at a run. The Sacoridians hesitated for but a moment, then pursued the Eletians. When they reached a clearing they halted. It was as if something had come in and scraped the forest floor to its bedrock. Nothing grew there, not even the pervasive moss and lichens, even though the clearing did not look recent. In fact, the rock was smooth as though melted and fused. What kind of power could do that to granite?
On the edges of the clearing stood crumbling buildings wrapped in tree roots as if the very trees were intent upon crushing them little by little over the passage of years.
“Gods,” Ard muttered.
Spiney fell to his knees and loosed a keening wail that rocked Karigan backward. The other Eletians bowed their heads. Everything in the woods stilled.
“What is it?” Grant demanded.
“Telavalieth had a small grove for its Sleepers,” Lhean answered. “We are standing in it.”
“Sleepers? What do you mean Sleepers? And what grove? What happened to it?”
“When our folk tire of the waking world, they leave it for the long sleep and become the hearts of great trees until they are ready for the world again.”
Karigan remembered the Eletian prince Jametari explaining it to her. If she lived an endless life like the Eletians, she imagined she’d want a respite as well.
“Your people turn into trees?” Grant was incredulous.
“No,” Lhean said with an edge of annoyance to his voice.
By now Spiney lay prone on the ground. He did not shake with tears. He made no sound.
“Lhean,” Karigan said quietly, and pointed. “Is he all right?”
“Ealdaen is of Argenthyne. It may be he knew one who dwelled here.”
Ealdaen. So Spiney had a name, and if he was of Argenthyne, then he must have fled before Mornhavon’s invasion a millennium ago ...
“What happened to this grove?” Ard asked.
Spiney—Ealdaen—rose to his feet and turned his searing gaze upon Ard. “Mornhavon seak mortes.” Then he strode off.
Ard scratched his head. “What did he say?”
“ Mornhavon killed it,’ ” Karigan replied, surprised to hear the words coming from her own mouth.
Everyone looked sharply at her.
“I didn’t know you spoke Eletian,” Grant accused.
“I ... I don’t. His tone said it. And the evidence is beneath our feet.”
“She is correct,” Graelalea said, pointing at fused stone. “Mornhavon destroyed the grove with his power, and enough so that it would never again take root.”
“That is not all he did,” Lynx said quietly, gazing at the ruins in the forest.
They took their midday rest in the clearing, a few of them peering into nearby ruins. It was not easy to discern the original appearance of the structures for it was as if they’d become part of the trees themselves, absorbed by sinuous, snaking roots. Architectural details of stonework and sculpture remained, though most of it was badly damaged.
Karigan wandered toward the ruins as well, but paused to gaze back at Yates, who sat alone in the center of the clearing, staring at his knees. He’d become oddly quiet. Something was eating at him. If it kept up, she’d shake it out of him later.
A glint through the window of a nearby building caught her eye. She peered inside, but it was all shadow and stank of mildew. Curious as to what lay in the shadows, she drew out her moonstone. Instantly light filled the interior and she caught her breath, for on the opposite wall a mosaic flickered with life, a scene of a young maiden with a garland of flowers in her hair and her lover reaching for her. The backdrop was of a summer forest in all its shades of green with the azure sky above. Karigan’s eyes feasted on the colors after the dullness of Blackveil.
The artist had captured a story in motion, a moment in time, the light of Karigan’s moonstone rippling over the shining pieces of the mosaic making birds in emerald green and sapphire blue seem to fly; a deer in the distance looked back at her as if pausing just before bounding off into the forest. Would the maiden rebuff her lover, or would she fall into his arms for a kiss? Was their love destined or forbidden ? Karigan wondered if the mosaic depicted a scene from some tale of Argenthyne, or if it portrayed the inhabitants of this . . .
Yes, a house, Karigan thought. Whatever furnishings had once existed in the room had rotted away long ago, but beneath the dirt and dust on the floor was intricate tile work. She could not discern the designs, but they seemed to weave together in a way that made her think of music.
She closed her eyes and could almost hear the music. It flowed like water, sounds of laughter, and Eletian voices. When she opened her eyes, the moonstone still illuminated the room and she thought she saw filmy figures swirling in motes of dust in some lost dance.
But no, it was just the play of light on shadows in a place long abandoned and the whining of biters in her ears. What had happened to the occupants of this house? Had they been destroyed by Mornhavon’s forces?
There was a cry and Karigan tore herself away from the window to see what was the matter. The others ran to Hana who was looking through a doorway into another building. She did not appear to be in any danger, but Karigan ran anyway, and when she peered over Ard’s shoulder to see what everyone else was looking at, she reeled away rubbing her eyes.
Skulls. Skulls piled high to the ceiling.
She dared look in again. They filled the room from corner to corner, the bones matted with moss and darkened by ... soot? Striations scarred them, the gnawing of rodents. Gaping black eye sockets, empty, soulless. The people of Telavalieth.
There was no tale left for the beautiful maiden and her lover. Not here. None would know their story. They were all dead.
The Eletians huddled together and Solan sang, his voice pure, the sound of rain. The sorrow wrenched Karigan inside.
A tentative touch on her arm. She turned. It was Yates.
“What—” he began. “What is wrong here?”
“Look inside,” she replied, “and you’ll understand.”
Yates shifted his stance, his expression uncharacteristically fearful, his gaze fixed somewhere past her shoulder.
Now alarmed, she asked, “Yates? Are you all right?”
“I can’t look inside,” he said, passing his hand over his eyes. “I can hardly see.” He squinted. “It’s gone now. My sight. I’m blind.”
ROOTS
Karigan waved her hand in front of Yates’ face, but he didn’t even blink. She placed her hands on his cheeks and turned his head so she could look directly into his eyes, searching for any sign of injury, but she saw nothing.
“Do your eyes hurt?” she asked.
“No,” he replied.
“Then how has this happened?”
“I—” He swept his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Started last night. Got worse today and now . . .” He gave a shuddering exhalation. “Karigan,” he whispered, “I’m scared.”
So was she. Yates stumbling blind in Blackveil decreased his chances of survival immensely, and would slow down
the company.
She grabbed his hands and squeezed. “We’ll figure this out, Yates. Maybe the Eletians know what—”
A clattering came from inside the building with the skulls. Karigan gazed in—they all did. A huge snakelike tentacle serpentined among the skulls, pausing here and there as if to finger the air.
“Oh, gods,” Grant murmured.
It reared, sending several skulls clacking down the pile, then lunged through the doorway at them. They leaped back, Karigan tugging Yates after her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A creature or . . .” It looked, insanely, like one of the tree roots.
Hissing grew around them, rumbling through the ruins, tree branches quivering. More and more of the tendrils rippled to life—they were tree roots. They roiled out of the shadows and slithered toward them like thousands of snakes.
“We must go,” Graelalea said. “Now!”
Even as they turned to flee, a root lashed out and wound around Hana. She screamed. The Eletians leaped to with swords to hack at the root, but it snatched her through the air and into the woods and out of sight in the blink of an eye. Her screams trailed behind her until they abruptly stopped.
“Hana!” Lhean cried. He surged after her, but Ealdaen and Telagioth caught him and spoke rapidly to him in Eletian.
Then to the rest, Graelalea shouted, “Follow me! Run!”
“What’s going on?” Yates demanded.
Karigan grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the way as a root whipped out at them. Everyone broke into a run for the center of the clearing.
Roots swarmed the ruins, crushing walls and remnants of roofs. They exploded from the building of the skulls, the skulls pouring out through broken walls. They smashed through the house with the mosaic and Karigan thought of the maiden and her lover shattered into millions of tiny, sparkling pieces.
The roots surged across the clearing after the company, hissing against bare rock.
The companions grabbed their packs at a run, Karigan still pulling the stumbling Yates behind her, following at the end of the line as Graelalea plunged into the forest on the opposite side of the clearing. One glance back revealed writhing roots rippling across the clearing after them. The ruins, which had abided the centuries in quiescence, had been pulverized in mere moments.
Blackveil: Book Four of Green Rider Page 43