“You have done well, Jasmina. Few could have mastered the fear of returning here, coming so close to death, even to do the noble task you and Bren set for yourselves.”
“Thank you. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
“You are wrong in that.” He sounded both proud and sad. “The help I gave, I drew from the strength you brought with you, the strength you and Bren wielded together. The Goddess could not help but bless such an effort.” The stars in his eyes seemed to multiply as he bobbed his head, then turned away, sighed, and turned back. “You do not need me any longer.”
“That’s not true!” I leaned forward, until I was almost nose to beak with him. “What if I lose my way again?”
“You have it within you to find your way back to your true path, your destination—and your destiny.” He pecked my nose gently, almost like a bird kiss.
I started to protest, but he cut me off with a rustle of his splendid tail feathers. “Did you give your mother my message?”
“Oh.” I slapped my hand over my mouth, then lowered it. “In the commotion—I’m so sorry, Egidus. I forgot.”
“Remember this time,” he said earnestly. “For me. Please.”
“I promise. Love is never wrong. I’ll tell her.”
He bobbed his graceful head. “That’s it. It would do for you to remember that as well.”
“I will.” I gave him my best smile even though I really wanted to cry. Impulsively, I grabbed hold of the bird and hugged him to me. He didn’t resist. In fact, he brushed my cheek with his crown feathers.
“Go now,” he whispered. “Before the passage closes.”
I let him go, running my fingers across his silken feathers. “Will I see you again?”
The night played a few tricks on my eyes, but I was certain the peacock winked at me. “For certain, when the time comes. Goodbye, Jasmina Corey.”
As ridiculous as it seemed, despite the fact that I once wanted to cook him, I actually did start to cry as he took flight. “Goodbye, Egidus!”
I waved, and kept waving, until his shape faded into the moonlit night of Talamadden.
Thankfully, Bren elected not to pick on me about crying when I joined him at the Glorieuse. I could tell he wanted to know what we talked about, just as I wanted to know what Egidus had said to annoy Bren. These were topics for another time, though. We had pressing matters ahead of us.
We located Acaw’s staff and held it between us, our hands locked together around the ancient magical wood. Together, we spoke a quick word of thanks to the Goddess, and leaped into the passage without the slightest hesitation.
Instead of the horrible Shadows and fears I had faced before, I felt only the slightest tug in my belly. Bren let go my hand, taking the staff with him, but I could still see him, fuzzy, almost a doubled image, as we slid through the cool blackness, back to the land of the living.
With the sound of wind through rushes, Bren slid out ahead of me. I came right after him, but the world looked strange to my eyes as I emerged into the first light of dawn. The snow-covered ground of the Sacred Lands stretched below me, but it seemed much too far away.
Had I landed in midair?
I flapped my wings.
Wings? Wings!
When I looked down at myself, I saw golden-red feathers and talons. But—wait. There was my body, sprawled on the ground in the snow. Acaw was standing over me chanting, staff in hand. On the elfling’s other side lay Bren.
“Hey, phoenix-girl,” squawked a close-by voice. I jerked my attention to the right, only to see Bren’s hawk form hovering in the air beside me.
“What were you saying when we did this before?” he asked in a tone entirely too calm. “About ba essence getting pulled apart from ka?”
***
Chapter Eighteen
“No!” The phoenix burned a few of my tail feathers with the force of her answer. The smoke would have made me sneeze, if I weren’t a bird. “We don’t have time for this now. Come on.”
Jazz-Phoenix folded her wings and plunged toward the ground. “Hey!” I folded my wings and shot after her. “Slow up! Be careful!”
She wasn’t listening, but I was gaining in a hurry. We were still about twenty feet up from our bodies. Then ten. I caught her around eight feet from the ground, grabbing at her brilliant red midsection to break her fall just in case it might hurt her.
My talons never touched her. Instead, they went right through her.
I went right through her!
It was a total, dizzying rush, like being smacked with an electric wire, right in the brain.
Both of us shrieked, bird-style, as we plummeted the rest of the way, straight into our bodies.
With a jolt I opened my eyes—my human eyes. I wiggled all eight of my fingers, my toes, arms, and legs, just to confirm that I was a guy again and not a bird. Skin, no feathers. Right on.
By the position of the sun I could tell it was a little later in the day. When I sat up, I saw Jazz perched on a rock next to Acaw and his crow-brother, and the slithers lumbering around behind them. It looked like the beasts were pacing.
I made a quick visual check just to be sure I had legs and arms instead of feathers, then got to my feet. I stumbled a little, then regained my balance.
Jazz pointed her index finger at me. Gold light with a few silver sparkles crackled outward, straightening my clothes and hair.
She grinned.
“Wait a minute.” I started to step toward her, then stopped. “You’re too far away.”
Another spellblast cleaned the snow off my butt and dried it at the same time. With a bit of a scorch.
“Witch!” I shot back with a bolt of my magic, missed, and knocked Acaw off the rock into the snow.
“Oops. Sorry about that.” I clenched my fist and brought my elbow down to my side in a quick motion of victory. “But, yessssss! My own magic!”
“And it seems to be stronger,” Acaw growled as he pushed himself up with the aid of his staff.
I looked around. Nothing but slithers, an elfling and crow-brother with serious attitude problems, and a witch who had just singed my butt. And the smells—snow, fresh air, and pine. “Where are the harpies?”
“They departed,” the elfling grumbled, but looked a little relieved.
Jazz stood and held out her hand. “Come on. I think I’ve figured out a spell to speed us along. We need to hurry, just in case Alderon was telling the truth about the Shadows and L.O.S.T.—and just in case there was any truth to my nightmare.”
All of that came rushing back to me in one nasty stream of images, and that was all it took. I ran toward Jazz and Acaw, and we mounted the slithers.
As if sensing our fear, our need to get home, and following their own need to make sure Todd was okay, the big lizards snorted, then took off like they’d been fired out of magic cannons.
Jazz and I made our shield against the wind, then tried out her spell for speed. She handled Acaw’s little golden slither while I worked on our big blue ride.
It worked—big time. The Sacred Lands turned into a blur underneath us. If the Erlking and his daughters wanted to pick a fight, they’d need supercharged flaming branches to catch us. We were really booking.
The magic didn’t seem too big or too draining, either. It was weird, but I still felt a touch of Jazz’s energy inside me. I wondered if she felt the same way, but as usual, there didn’t seem to be any time for us to talk about it. Our lives weren’t leaving much room for… well, us.
Frustration and worry curled in my chest, and the slithers started slowing down. Jazz leaned back against me, resting her head on my shoulder.
“Focus,” she whispered, as good as any medicine.
I wrapped my arms around her, and I did exactly what she said.
We flew without stopping. We flew without sleeping. Acaw and the slithers seemed to understand the need, to be willing to go until we all dropped.
Time lost all meaning. Hours ran together into a day, mayb
e more. My legs ached. My throat felt like a desert. And still we flew. I felt like we were blazing across the sky on one big burning branch ripped from a live oak.
There was only the shield and the spell, the sky, the wind and the wings. And somewhere, seemingly forever away from us, our families, our friends, our people.
L.O.S.T
“Goddess help us,” Jazz said as the exhausted slithers banked in for a landing at the edge of the brighter section of the Sacred Lands. Yet somehow the brilliant landscape seemed shadowed, not so cheerful and sunny. The dwarves toiled without spirit and the fairies weren’t buzzing around the flowers.
I forced my attention to our goal. We had reached the doorway to the Path, but I could tell immediately how wrong things had gone.
The outer walls were a dusky gray, lifeless, and without their vibrant hum. This looked more like the Path I had first crossed with Jazz, what seemed like a century ago. Jazz let out a soft cry and slid to the ground, hugging herself. “How can this be? Nire is gone!”
“It’s Alderon,” I slid down beside her. “You heard him back in Talamadden. He’s got some of Mom’s powers, and he’s got the Shadows.”
“Indeed.” Acaw came up beside us, thumping his staff on the ground. “This will be a tricky passage. I have communicated with the slithers, and they have reluctantly agreed to remain here until we can fetch them.”
“Todd won’t like that,” I said without thinking, then wanted to shout and hit something. Todd. My brother. Would he even be in L.O.S.T. when we got back? And if he was there, would I find my kid brother or some hag-strangled corpse?
Jazz gripped my hand, holding me to reality, to the next step.
Acaw did his part, tapping the side of the polluted Path walls. The round door I remembered from before appeared. A hobbit hole, but it looked like live black moss covered the whole thing. I didn’t want to touch it in the worst way, but what choice did I have?
Clenching my teeth against the disgusting, slimy feel of the stuff, I grabbed hold of the portal and swung it open.
Out rushed a black fog of rot that turned my stomach.
The slithers stomped and snorted behind us, and from somewhere, I thought I heard fairies screaming and the sound of dwarf footsteps scrambling away.
“Quickly!” Acaw plunged into the unnatural darkness.
Jazz whimpered, but she followed, diving through headfirst.
“Todd, this is for you.” I jumped in behind her.
My guts seemed to stay in the Sacred Lands, along with half of my head. I couldn’t see a thing. I couldn’t smell anything but funk, death, and sour dirt. Coughing, I lurched around, but couldn’t get my balance on the moving floor until hands grabbed my shoulders.
Jazz.
“Draw your sword, Bren!”
I didn’t hesitate.
It still felt heavy and wrong in my right hand, but I got the blade out of its scabbard and held it up, sending a burst of magic through the well-worked steel. Light flared. Shadows hissed and recoiled, flowing in and out of the Path walls.
Jazz, pale as a ghost and shaking so hard I didn’t know how she was standing, slammed the portal shut. Acaw tapped it, making it disappear.
The three of us turned as one. Acaw used his staff to defend himself, sending pulses of energy at any Shadow that got too close. Jazz shot blazing gold light from both palms, fingers outstretched. I led the way, swinging my brilliant silver sword back and forth.
Retching and staggering, we made slow progress, pushing the limits of my blade’s silvery light. Falling more than walking, refusing to surrender to the madness around us, we headed for home.
By the time we reached the entrance to L.O.S.T., I felt like I had hacked my way through the base of a huge mountain. My shoulders burned. The cut on my face had opened. Blood spilled down my cheek. My hand was bleeding, too, as the healing seemed to go in reverse. So much pain. Agony. Fire.
“Jazz!” My clenched teeth bit off the shout, but she heard me.
Screaming, shooting at Shadow-fingers that swiped at her ankles, she fell past me and thrust her hands into the Path wall.
A fissure opened—more like cracked.
She got sucked through immediately, and I felt the pull, too. It was all I could do to hold off the Shadows until Acaw got past me. As he slipped into the fissure, the elfling reached back and hooked his small but very strong hand behind my knee.
With a big yank, he jerked me through the opening.
I pitched off, flying more than falling, and belly flopped onto the floor of the general store. My sword skittered out of my hand. I sucked air into my flattened lungs, wishing I had enough breath to yell.
It was just as dark in the store as it had been inside the Path. Not good.
“Closing,” Jazz gasped from behind me. “Closing now.”
Golden light flared, and I knew she was sealing the gash she had opened to get us home.
Acaw helped me to my feet and handed me my sword. I didn’t sheath it.
Jazz stumbled toward me, collapsing into my one-armed embrace.
“I don’t want to do this,” she whispered.
“Me, neither.” I kissed the top of her head, allowing myself two seconds to enjoy the feeling of holding her, the way her hair smelled. Whatever happened, at least I’d lived long enough to tell her how I felt about her. She was my girl, my queen.
And I was a king. It was time to do my job.
I straightened up as best I could, gave Jazz one more kiss, then sent a spellblast up my sword to light the store, which had been destroyed all over again. And not just destroyed. The place was mostly dust and fingernails and glass, scattered between big, burned holes in the floor.
Acaw let out a soft cough of dismay.
I lifted the blade a little higher as Jazz stepped out of my embrace and grabbed the wrist of my injured hand. “Let’s go.”
We marched forward, looking straight ahead at the door.
Outside, through holes where glass should have been, we saw unnatural flashes of black light, mingled with silver sparks and gold bolts of power.
I reached the door first, yanked it open, and strode into the madness, sword raised. One step. Two. I didn’t get a third.
A force slammed into me. My muscles seemed to wobble and turn to nothing, along with my bones. Jazz’s hand tore out of mine. I dropped the sword, plunging myself into darkness as I was swept up from the ground.
What had ahold of me? What was yanking me into the air?
I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t even struggle against the force.
Sharp, burning pains lanced my chest. I looked down. Light flared out of a bunch of holes, right around my heart. The beams joined, forming what looked like a bird.
A hawk? My experiences with Talamadden flew through my thoughts.
Ba and ka.
Some evil magic was tearing apart my spirit and my physical body!
Thinking fast, thinking like Jazz, I centered myself. With every bit of my will, I wrapped my magic around the silvery hawk-spirit. My lips and voice came to life as I touched the shimmering apparition.
“No! I’m not ready to die!”
Just as fast, I realized what Jazz would do. In a big hurry, I muttered wardings and containments, all of them I could remember, binding myself and my spirit into that one space, into that one time.
But I couldn’t pull the light to me, couldn’t get it back into the holes around my heart.
We just hung there, suspended above the world, seemingly outside it, my body and my spirit, staring at one another with wide, desperate eyes.
***
Chapter Nineteen
Bren was gone before I had a chance to react, swept upward in the foulest cloud of dark magic I had ever seen. Shadows flew up and ringed the cloud, making what looked like a solid, pulsing tornado over the general store.
Acaw dropped his staff and reeled away from me, slicing Shadow after Shadow as his crow-brother took flight, doing the same. There were so
many. Too many. The elfling fell in seconds, covered by the ravening darkness.
With a scream of rage and grief, I threw myself toward Bren’s sword and snatched it off the ground. Shadows closed in to swallow me. Icy teeth chomped near my ears, my eyes.
I raised the sword and screamed “Cease!” in my most commanding voice.
Nothing happened. Something was binding my power! Or at least pushing it back. Nullifying me just enough to ruin my intentions.
From above came a hideous bunch of screeches, different from the rest of the noises.
The Shadows drew back from their attack, chittering darkly.
From overhead, huge winged shapes plunged into the fray. I couldn’t see them, but I knew what they were.
Harpies.
The beasts had come to pay their debt.
I whirled around to join the fight, and found myself face to face with Alderon, separated only by a few feet and Bren’s sword between us.
“Welcome home.” He grinned his nasty grin, and those disturbing electric blue eyes gave an equally nasty flash. As he had been during his tenure at Shadowbridge, he was filthy and oily in his brown tunic and breeches.
“Like what I’ve done with the place?” He gestured toward the town I had so lovingly constructed, the hope I had given myself when all other hope had failed.
L.O.S.T. was nothing but a collection of smoldering support beams and rubble. Shadows clogged my vision, darting up and down, harrying witches who tried to fight back. Dark lumps lay in every direction.
So much death!
I couldn’t gather my wits, but I kept Bren’s sword between Alderon and me.
When I called to a group of nearby hags, Alderon laughed.
“Don’t be stupid. They’re on my side. Something about sacrificing their clans to the harpies, then setting their murderers free.”
That I couldn’t process. Hags, gone over to serve Shadows. How could we fight Alderon, Shadows, and the hags, too? What if all of the oldeFolke had defected?
L.O.S.T. Trilogy Box Set Page 45