by Cindy Dees
Sha’Li.
Bless her. Will had no idea where she’d come from or how long she’d been watching the fight, but she’d obviously realized the importance of separating Tiberius from his sword.
Ty shouted in dismay and rage and turned on Will then, throwing a blistering barrage of magic at both him and Aurelius. When he had them on full defensive, Ty turned and ran.
Dregs. He had a good head start on Will.
“Leave him,” Aurelius said from behind Will. “I’m almost out of mana, and you need to rest.”
As soon as Aurelius said the word rest, fatigue so ferocious that Will could hardly stand upright under the weight of it slammed into him. Aurelius actually had to wedge a shoulder under Will’s armpit to help him back to the king’s side.
He dropped to his knees beside the fallen Rosana. “They can be renewed now, can’t they?” he asked.
“Aye. But I have no magic left to do it. Your father tapped me out completely with that last attack.”
If his father was responsible for Rosana having to resurrect, he would kill Ty.
The thought must have shown on his face, for Aurelius murmured, “Your father is not in his right mind. He would never harm you or anyone you care about. He loves you and your mother more than life.”
“There has to be something we can do!” Will cried. “I can’t just sit here and watch her die!”
Movement across the clearing made Will reach for his staff defensively. But what he saw when he pushed painfully to his feet made him stare.
“Leland?” Aurelius breathed.
* * *
Hyland and his foster children were just stepping into the wide clearing that held the body of a man who could only be the Sleeping King himself when two fighting figures all but knocked them over. A paxan warrior wearing crystal gauntlets and fist fighting in the ancient style was grappling with a heavily armed warrior, tall and thin.
As he turned to address this new threat, the armored man landed a heavy blow in the side of the paxan’s head with his metal-gaged forearm. The paxan went down heavily and lay still. Leland couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or dead.
Eben shouted and jumped forward, drawing him and Marikeen into a fight with the Gaged Man, whether Leland wished it or no.
Stars, the thin man was fast. He seemed able to fight independently with each hand simultaneously, something Leland had never witnessed. Eben attempted to tie up the man’s left-hand sword while Leland fought the fellow’s right-hand sword. Marikeen danced back and forth between him and Eben, trying to land elemental magic damage when openings presented themselves. But the Gaged Man steadily drove them backward, across the clearing, past four bodies lying on the ground.
Leland was shocked to recognize the corpses—Selea Rouge, Raina, and Rosana. He didn’t know the fourth deceased, an elderly female elf, kindari maybe.
His distraction proved costly because their attacker turned both weapons on Eben for a moment, forcing the jann to retreat quickly and stumble. Marikeen leaped to steady her brother, and Leland jumped forward on the attack once more.
But as he fought, his mind raced. With time, he, Eben, and Marikeen would overwhelm their opponent. But at what cost to the dead lying just behind them? Leland had enough strength left to renew the foursome. But he would have to leave Eben and Marikeen to fight this attacker alone. The pair was doing well, holding their own, even. But he did not think they could beat the Gaged Man without his help.
Selea was one of his dearest friends, and he’d long thought of Raina as the daughter he and his wife should have had. Both of them were dead. Time grew short to save them from the dangers of resurrection.
He owed Raina his life. She’d put on the White Heart colors for him when she desperately didn’t want to. She was wearing his wife’s White Heart tabard, for stars’ sake. His wife … he knew the choice she would have him make.
“You two have this fight!” he called to Eben and Marikeen. “I believe in you!”
He dropped back and rushed over to the fallen as much as his ghostly form allowed him to hurry. He dropped to one knee beside Raina, placing his hand on her forehead. He murmured the incant for a renewing spell and cast ghostly white magic into her.
Raina’s eyes fluttered open, and she jolted when she looked up at him. “You live?” she mumbled.
“Nay, child. I but visit briefly from beyond the Veil. Will you renew your friends or shall I?”
“If you can do it, I would appreciate it,” she sighed weakly.
He frowned. She didn’t feel right. But rather than address that, he turned to the next body and incanted the magic for renewing life.
Will, who was kneeling beside the young gypsy healer, all but jumped up and down in his urgency to see Rosana healed and alive. Leland cast the spell into her, and her eyes opened. Will dragged her into a smothering embrace, and Leland spied wetness on the boy’s cheeks. Poignant longing for his own sweet wife filled him.
Leland moved on quickly to Selea and the elven woman, renewing each of them successfully in turn. Then he said, “Your paxan friend went down a few moments before we came into this clearing. He may be in need of assistance.”
A black lizardman girl leaped out from where she’d been lurking in the shadows and raced in the direction he pointed. He hoped she got to the paxan in time. He had put up a valiant fight against the man in the gages. For his part, Leland was too weak to move far from this spot and maintain his current form.
A voice taunted from the woods, “Can’t take me by yourself, boy? You’ll never be the man I am.”
Will Cobb pushed to his feet, a look of determination coming across his young features. Leland would have stopped him, told him he was every bit the man his father had been, but the boy rushed off too quickly for him to say a word. Instead, Leland traded worried looks with the gypsy healer and helped her rise to her feet.
Kendrick ran into the clearing, and Leland’s heart swelled with pride as Kendrick spotted him and came over to him. His son had become a man in the past months.
They shared a short, hard embrace, and then Leland murmured, “Eben and Marikeen are in trouble. They fight a tall man in gages. You know how proud I am of you and how much I love you and always will. Go, my son. Do the Hyland name proud.”
Thankfully, Kendrick ran for the woods, for no more words would have passed the hot lump in Leland’s throat.
* * *
Sha’Li darted in the direction Leland Hyland had pointed and found Rynn in a heap on the ground. Cicero was fighting a glassy-eyed hydesmyn just beyond Rynn’s prostrate form, and the two were evenly matched. Sha’Li would have helped Cicero, but she didn’t know how long Rynn had been down and whether he was bleeding out or even dead.
She checked his neck and was relieved to feel a pulse. Lifting Rynn’s head, she poured a healing potion down his throat and waited for it to take effect. In a few seconds, he shuddered and his eyes opened.
“Demons below, that tastes awful!” he declared.
“My granny says it tastes bad so it’ll wake a person up.”
“It worked.” Still making a face, he jumped to his feet.
“You need help, Cicero?” Sha’Li called.
“Nah. I got this.”
His opponent scowled and redoubled his efforts.
Rynn said, “Yon hydesmyn is possessed. I can smell it on him from here.”
Sha’Li walked beside Rynn as they approached the dueling men. “What does possession smell like?”
“It smells like whatever object was used to bind the phantasm possessing the person to the person.”
“What kind of object?”
“Something magical works best. An item of personal importance, and the more indestructible the better. When the binding item is destroyed, the link is broken, and the possession ends.”
She frowned and removed the seed from her pouch. “I saw the small, elven woman who traveled with yon hydesmyn carrying this. I sense magic in it. Could it be her binding
item?”
Rynn shrugged. “Smash it and see what happens.”
Sha’Li dropped the seed onto the ground, rolling it with the heel of her boot onto a flattish stone. She raised her foot and stomped on the seed. Although she nearly succeeded in knocking herself over, the seed was not even scratched.
Rynn frowned and struck the seed with his crystal gauntlet. Still nothing. He said, “We need something heavier and sharper to hit it with.”
“I have just the thing.” Sha’Li pulled the white-bladed sword out of her belt that she’d taken from Will’s father earlier. She raised the weapon over her head in both hands and chopped down on the seed with all her strength.
The explosion as the blade impacted the seed, shattering both blade and seed, knocked her back a good ten feet. It sent Rynn, Cicero, and his opponent flying, as well. A massive wave of magic rolled outward from the broken seed, green in taste and smell and so powerful Sha’Li couldn’t breathe through its coating on her skin and inside her lungs. The magic soaked into her body, invigorating her and filling her with such power as she had never imagined possible.
“What was that?” Rynn gasped.
“Where am I?” the hydesmyn asked, confused. “Who are you?” he demanded of Cicero.
“I’m the kindari you’ve been doing your level best to kill for the last half hour.”
“Kill? Why? What have you done to me?”
“Nothing, sir.”
Rynn moved forward to stand in front of the increasingly agitated hydesmyn. “May I touch your mind for a moment? You have my word of honor I will do nothing to alter or influence your mind. I merely check to see if you are clear of your late possession.”
“Possession! By all means check.”
Rynn needed only a few seconds to declare the man free of whatever had been controlling him. “What’s your name, sir?”
“Adrick. Yours?”
“Rynn.”
“Tell me, Adrick. Are your two companions possessed, as well?”
“No idea.”
“Let us go find them. Perhaps you can help us identify what item acts as the binding link of the phantasm possessing them.”
* * *
Will was knocked off his feet by a huge wave of magical power passing through the underground chamber. It felt like nature magic, but on a scale so far beyond anything he’d ever experienced he hardly recognized it as magic.
Ty also went down, but unlike Will, as he fell, he let out a keening sound that did not sound human in origin.
Will clambered to his feet and rushed over to his father, who was just rolling over slowly onto his back.
“Will? What on Urth?”
“You know who I am?”
“Of course. You’re my son! Where are we? And why am I showing myself to you? We’re supposed to be following you from a distance and lending support only as you need it while we spy on Governor Constantine and figure out what he’s up to.”
“You do know that Anton is no longer the governor, don’t you?” Will asked, confused.
“What?” Ty squawked.
Aurelius stepped forward. “Whatever was possessing you has obviously fled your mind. That wave of magic must have cleared the creature from you. Anton was deposed nearly a year ago.”
“A year? Are you saying I’ve been possessed for a year? What mayhem have I caused? I have not dishonored the De’Vir name, have I?”
“On the contrary, my son,” Aurelius answered soberly. “Your cleverness in secretly teaching your son the ways of the warrior has done you great credit and undoubtedly saved young Will’s life.”
“On many occasions,” Will added.
“Where’s your mother? Is she all right?”
Panic rushed through Will. He couldn’t lose her again after he’d just found her. Father and son took off running through the maze in search of her before the creature possessing her did anything to permanently harm Serica.
* * *
Kendrick attacked and parried alongside his foster siblings, doing everything in his power to keep the full attention of the Gaged Man upon him, Eben, and Marikeen. Kendrick could see Selea Rouge circling around behind the Gaged Man, who truthfully was getting the better of the three of them. Any second now, the assassin would be in position to attack, but he’d better hurry. Kendrick didn’t think they could hold off the Gaged Man for much longer.
But then a violent magical wave rushed through the area and smashed into Selea’s back, slamming him forward and into the back of the Gaged Man, who crashed to the ground at Kendrick’s feet just as Kendrick was knocked over himself. He rolled fast, snatching the Gaged Man’s sword and tossing it away. Eben leaped on the Gaged Man, who was still.
Cautiously, Kendrick stood up, and Eben eased off their foe. Last, Selea rose to his feet and rolled over the Gaged Man with his foot. He’d impaled himself awkwardly on his own sword. It had entered his chest at an oblique angle, but appeared to have pierced his heart. He was dying.
As they looked on, he took a final, rattling breath, and died.
“Good riddance,” Marikeen muttered.
“What was that wave of energy?” Eben asked.
Selea shrugged. “Let us find Aurelius and ask him.”
* * *
Vesper was frantic. Time was running out, and nothing was going as she had planned. She was stuck in this fragile body, her bodyguard was nowhere to be found, and that cursed lizardman girl had not only freed Adrick from his possession but in a much more dire development had somehow managed to shatter the unshatterable sword that bound Tiberius to her and had made him her slave all these long months.
Now she only had this elven woman’s mortal form and her own wits to rely on.
Gawaine’s spirit was drawing close to the chamber—she could feel his dream-touched spirit approaching rapidly. Any minute now, he would enter his body, and her chance for a return to Urth and renewed immortality would be lost.
Racing frantically toward the king’s physical body, she slowed only when she heard voices and saw movement ahead. At least her physical host was excellent at moving in silence and stealth.
At least a dozen people were gathered around the king’s bier. They were discussing the wave of magic that had ripped through the chamber a few minutes ago.
A solinari who reeked of magic was asking a black lizardman girl, “So you struck this seed with Dragon’s Tooth, and both were destroyed?”
“Aye, Guildmaster Aurelius. That was when the wave of nature magic came from the seed.”
“So that was nature magic!” a young human exclaimed.
“Yes, Will,” the solinari replied. “Extremely powerful nature magic. If I am not mistaken, that was the Seed of Haelos, one of the pieces of the Sleeping King’s regalia.”
“And I destroyed it?” the lizardman cried in dismay.
“All is not lost, Sha’Li,” the one called Aurelius soothed. “I captured a piece of the magic. I can give it back to the king. And I sense a piece of it in you, as well. Your Tribe mark is glowing with exceptional brightness and carrying a green tinge.”
The lizardman girl fingered the mark on her cheek.
“I think I caught a piece of the wave, as well,” the White Heart healer offered.
Aurelius cast a quick spell that was likely some sort of detection spell. “Why, I believe you did, Raina.” He turned to the gypsy healer and cast a spell on her, as well. He frowned but murmured, “You also hold a portion of the nature magic, Rosana.”
Raina said, “If I call upon the nature magic now stored within me, do you think I could cast it into Gawaine in the same way I would cast my own magic?”
The solinari nodded. “Yes, indeed. That might just work. All the healers might be able to do that.”
The gypsy called Rosana looked back and forth between the boy Will and Gawaine. “If I give you the nature magics within me, they might permanently bond you with Lord Bloodroot. You would never have to be sick or angry or ruled by his violent passions again.�
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The youth shook his head. “No, Rosana. I can make do as I am. Give it to Gawaine.”
“But we could be together—”
The youth pressed his fingers to her lips. “We will yet find a way. But not this way.”
Aurelius looked at the old elven woman with spiderweb marks upon her face. “What of you, Ayli? Will you give the magics you absorbed to your king? Will you help us wake him?”
The woman nodded, looking too moved for words.
The solinari said briskly, “Set up a defensive perimeter. The last thing we need now is for someone to attack us and disrupt this ritual.”
The jann youth said, “We dropped the Gaged Man over that way. He’s dead and won’t bother us again.”
Dead? Her bodyguard? Panicked, Vesper moved quickly around the clearing toward where the jann had pointed, staying in the shadows and out of sight of the party in the clearing. It took her several long minutes, but she finally found her companion.
Fumbling in the pouch her host body wore, she found a precious renewing potion and poured it down her man’s throat. He lurched to life, and she pressed an urgent hand over his mouth to keep him from crying out. After a moment of wildness, he recognized her and nodded up at her.
She crouched down beside him, whispering, “We must stop the ritual to wake the king. I need to borrow your body. I need your strength and combat skill to get close to the Sleeping King and make the leap into him.”
* * *
For the first time since she’d fled Alchizzadon, Raina felt like her old self again. The voices were firmly controlled, her head pain-free, her magic flowing normally. That burst of nature magic had been powerful indeed. She was so relieved to feel healthy again, she almost wept with joy. This must be how Will had felt when they’d finally stabilized his health after he’d joined with Bloodroot.
Aurelius said, “We have three pieces of the king’s regalia and four healers. I would suggest that three of us hold one of the items to help us form a link to Gawaine and that the fourth assist.”
Ayli spoke up. “I already have a link to my king, forged through thousands of years of fealty to him by my people. I need no focus item.”