“God’s blood,” swore Elias.
“It’ll be some time before they can use their breath again,” said Teah, calm as ever.
“How long?” asked Malak.
“I don’t know,” replied Teah. “I’ve not encountered them outside of a book.”
“Then let the shield down so I can get at them before they do it again,” Elias said.
“That is unwise,” said Teah, “I can hold this shield practically indefinitely.”
Elias glanced at the downed man. The tar had eaten through his cape and leather vest alike and glistening white lumps protruded from his back, which Elias could only imagine were bones.
The wurm made darting dives at the Wilder, snapping with their teeth and swinging their barbed tails. Enra and her fellows dodged and parried with woefully inadequate stone daggers. It was a game of cat and mouse, but Elias knew that once the wurm recovered their ability to spit their acidic payload, the Wilder were doomed.
“They’ll die if we don’t help them,” Elias said.
“What’s your plan?” Teah asked.
Elias knew the Wilder didn’t have time for them to debate strategy. He brought up his sword and thrust it through Teah’s shield. The energetic barrier punctured at once with a pop, and Elias funneled Teah’s spell into his blade. He charged the wurm with a screeching battle cry that resounded and echoed through earthen chamber. It had the desired effect, as presently the wurm wheeled about to dart at him.
They moved with uncanny speed and he didn’t have time to shape his magic, or to call upon the few arcane workings with which he had become familiar, so he thrust his sword forward and willed the raw force of his power to discharge and detonate on the ceiling. The result was a largely colorless sphere that crackled with white and powder-blue arcs of energy. It detonated on the ceiling, crushing the nearest wurm to pulp, and raining granite shrapnel across the entire breadth of the chamber. The remaining wurm, who was at the edges of the blast radius, was hurled to the ground with one wing blown clean off.
Enra despite her wide-eyed shock recovered momentarily, and in rapid succession drew and fired two arrows, putting the maimed beast to bed.
Teah grasped Elias by a shoulder and with a finger on his chin tilted his head toward her so she could look in his eyes. “That was not the smartest thing you’ve ever done,” she said, not unkindly.
“I think I need to sit down,” Elias said.
Teah made a sound like a grunt, but more delicate. “I should think so. Have you ever heard of the idea of conservation of power?”
Elias sat, too weary to lift his sword to sheathe it. “I imagine that you are about to tell me.”
“If you are a general marching your men to battle the next day and you decide to march them all night until they are exhausted, what happens in the morning?”
“They are too tired to fight well, and lose the battle.”
“Indeed.”
“I understand your anecdote, but I was unsure how much I would need to kill them, and I didn’t want to get turned into wurm goo.”
Teah almost laughed. “Granted, but you ought to learn soon. If you had missed them and spent all of your power you would have surely died.” She studied the ceiling. “Also, we are rather lucky that you didn’t cave in the entire passage and bury us all alive.”
Elias rasped a chuckle. “Duly noted.”
Enra wandered up to them. “Inrek is dead.”
“I’m sorry for your friend,” Elias said.
Enra shook her head. “The Great Spirit will honor him for dying in battle to protect his people.” She looked Elias over. “You saved us.”
“We’ve just become friends,” he said. “Couldn’t let death ruin that.”
Enra looked at him flatly. “You’re humorous. We have fought together so we are now battle-kin. It’s not as thick as blood, but now we are bonded.” She paused before adding, “Unless you give us cause to sever the bond.”
“That,” said Elias, “I will not.”
“Are you hurt?” asked Enra.
“No, but I have made myself weary using my magic. I will require a moment’s rest.”
“Weary?” asked Enra. “I do not know this word.”
“Tired,” said Elias with a wan smile. “I’m tired.”
“Ah,” said Enra. “Well, you will sleep well tonight. I will lay with you if you want. You did save my life and I am not taken to a man’s tent yet.”
Elias found himself coughing as he swallowed a lungful of air into his stomach. “I, uh, wouldn’t want to put you out, but, uh, thank you anyway.”
Enra cast a sly glance at Teah. “I understand. Rest. I will see to Inrek.”
Enra padded off to secure her comrade’s remains. Teah knelt by Elias’s side and laid a hand on his brow. “He has a fever.”
“I’ve never actually seen a channeling backlash,” Malak said.
“It’s more common with violent outbursts of dynamistic energy,” said Teah. “Fortunately it’s only a mild case.” She locked eyes with Elias. “This time. I believe the sword insulated you to some degree.”
Elias offered her a hoarse cackle. “Better than death by acid.”
“Death by arcane burnout is not much more pleasant,” Teah remarked. She pried his sword from his white-knuckled fist. “See his sword is hot to the touch, it absorbed much of the backlash. Remarkable. It spared you a far worse case.”
“Since I’ve first picked it up it has saved me more times than I can count,” Elias said. He thought of his father, and his vision blurred as hot tears pooled in his eyes. He turned his head away.
Teah wiped at his eyes and held his face in her hands. “You have sacrificed much, Elias Duana. Do not ever dare be ashamed of your tears.”
For the first time, other than when he had been held prisoner by Sarad Mirengi, Elias thought about surrendering, following his parents and Asa into the peace he knew that could only be found on the other side of life, for in that moment a strange despair overcame him as he realized that in some ways he feared life more than death.
But a warm light bloomed in his chest, a white sunburst that burned away the shadowed pall over his thoughts and heart. He opened red-rimmed eyes to see Teah’s hand flat on his sternum, channeling an intense yet gentle magic into him. His fatigue fled, as did the headache, and his despair.
“Get up,” she said in a soft voice, “our story doesn’t end here. Not yet.”
Elias stood without a word and strapped his sword back on. He gathered Leosis’s cloak and drew it about him, tucking the folds under his sword belt. Enra approached Elias and the Enkilder. Using their cloaks and Inrek’s bow the Wilder had fashioned an impromptu sled to carry their comrade’s remains back to their people. “Have you recovered?” she asked Elias.
“Yes, thank-you. Let’s be off.”
Without another word Enra led Elias and his party deeper into the subterranean maze. Elias’s mind grew quiet and the entirety of his focus fell to putting one foot before the other. Cold seeped into the bones of his feet, and slowly pushed up into his legs. His thoughts turned to Knoll Creek and how warm it was in the summer, and how temperate in the winter, so different from the north. If he could have anything before he died, it would be to feel that warmth again, just once. Yet it looked like that might be a hollow dream.
He tightened his cloak and walked on, until he felt eyes upon him. He looked up to find they had wandered into a wide and cavernous chamber and into the center of the Wilder encampment. A clear pool bubbled in the lowest point of the chamber and tents pinwheeled out and around it, peppering the smooth floor and spreading up to striated ledges that climbed the walls of the ovular cavern.
Silent as wraiths, four bow-wielding Wilder approached and with no more than a lingering glance at the strangers relieved Enra and her companions of their burden. “Lay him in his tent with frankincense,” she told her fellows, “He can wait there until tomorrow. It is too late tonight to set the pyre.”
Enra turned to her guests. “I will sleep in my sister’s tent. You three may share mine. It will be tight, but will provide you some measure of privacy.”
Enra led them to a simple cone-shaped tent made from mismatched animal skins, but it was sealed with some kind of resin and would hold their warmth. The floor of the modest domicile was lined with moss and animal skins to deaden the feel of the hard stone. Without ceremony Elias collapsed against the nearest wall and drew his cloak about him. His head swam and spun, but he was too fatigued to feel nauseated. As the world dimmed he felt someone take off his boots, and then he knew no more.
Chapter 34
Medicine Woman
Elias was alone when he awoke.
The sounds of camp rang against the granite walls amidst the splashing of children in the nearby pool. He cast open the tent-flaps and blinked against the relative brightness of the chamber compared with the black of the tent. A quick survey of the camp revealed the light was sourced from braziers peppered around the camp which smoldered with coals.
Elias pulled on his boots, strapped on his sword, and made his way to the water. The children that ringed the pool looked up at him with open curiosity. Elias offered them a warm smile and crouched to cup some of the water into his hands to drink before rubbing some briskly onto his face and through his hair.
“Did you sleep good?”
Elias turned about on his haunches to look up at Enra who had her dark hair braided and oiled. “Like the dead.”
Enra nodded. “This is good.”
“Where are my companions?”
“In the Medicine Woman’s tent. I came to get you.”
Elias stood and smoothed his shirt. “Lead the way.”
Enra led him to the furthest, highest climes of the chamber, to a tent set apart from the others. It featured extra poles that created a more spacious pentagon-shaped structure, as opposed to the simple, triangular tent he had slept in last night. The tent-flaps had been peeled back and tied and a curtain of beads lay across the opening. Enra stooped and brushed the curtain aside and Elias followed.
To Elias’s surprise the tent was anything but spartan in comparison to Enra’s modest home. Baubles and stones littered a floor stuffed with skins and cloth remnants. The tent even boasted an old chair, which sat an aged, broad-faced woman, presumably the Medicine Woman.
“Do come in and make yourself comfortable, Elias,” said the Medicine Woman, “but please take off your boots.”
Elias complied and padded over to sit at Teah’s side. His eyes fell on a stack of books arranged on a repurposed shelf, held together with lengths of frayed rope.
“My books surprise you?”
“I wasn’t sure, I mean I didn’t know...”
The old woman grinned, exaggerating her laugh lines. “That we were literate?” Elias began to protest, but she held up a hand. “No, no that’s alright, you’ve not offended me. Most of my tribe can’t read, but I was taught by my mother, and she by hers. There are few books to be scavenged, and it’s taken me my life to procure these few tomes. They are this tribe’s most treasured possessions.” She turned her rheumy-eyed gaze to Teah. “If only we had friends that could help us expand our knowledge base.”
Teah returned her gaze. “If you can help us complete our task, I will give you every book I possess.”
The Medicine Woman studied the Enkilder, her expression neutral. “Your mission must be grave indeed.” She returned her attention back to Elias. “You bring great power here, Outsider.”
Elias unbuckled his sword and passed it to her as a measure of good faith. “It is a relic of my people, passed down to me by my father.”
She studied the weapon and traced the sigil on the scabbard with a finger. “This is good. But the sword is not what I meant.”
Elias summoned his arcane sight and studied the woman. Her aura was bright, hunter green, and extended several feet past her body. “You were the one that opened the passage here. You’re an arcanist.”
The woman grunted. “That is not the word I would choose, but while I don’t have any books on the old magic, I do know that is what people like me were once called. So, yes, I suppose I am.”
“Your mother taught you this as well?” Elias asked.
She nodded. “As I am teaching my granddaughter. Her mother didn’t have the gift, but she does. Show them, Enra.”
Enra took a small candle nub from the shelf and held it close to her face. She stared at the wick. For several beats nothing happened, then the wick began to smoke and sparked to a flame. Enra beamed a wide smile, and Elias realized how young she really was.
“Bit of advice,” Elias said before he could help himself, “not that you asked for it. The tunnels are dangerous and arcanists precious, especially now, I think. Keep your granddaughter from patrol, lest her gifts be wasted.”
Teah cast him an incredulous look, but the Medicine Woman chuckled. “I told her the same, but she wouldn’t listen to me. I thought that if she was determined to go exploring with or without my permission, she had best do it with a patrol to increase her chances of returning to me.”
Elias studied Enra and a kind of nostalgia washed over him, but one which left a bitter taste in his mouth. “I used to feel the same as you about adventure.”
Enra tilted her head. “Not now?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Elias looked flatly at her. “I killed my first man.”
Enra returned his gaze. “I’ve killed many things.”
“It’s different when you kill a man. Something goes out of you. Something you can’t get back.”
Enra looked away, and said no more.
A somber silence fell over the tent, until the Medicine Woman shifted in her chair. She turned her milky eyes on Teah. “Why have you come?”
“We seek knowledge far beneath the ruins.”
“You seek a doorway, but that is not what I meant. I know why he’s come here.” She indicated Elias by pointing her chin at him. “What I don’t know is why you’re helping him.”
“Hold your horses,” said Elias. “You know why I’ve come here?”
“Oh yes, Elias Duana,” she said. “I have had an inkling of your coming.”
Elias went still. “And what else have you seen?”
The Medicine Woman turned her attention back to Teah. “I’ll have my answer before we go any further.”
“The Enkilder domain has become unstable, unbalanced,” said Teah. “I’ve come to help Elias in the hope that I may restore balance to my home.”
The old woman grunted. “There is more to the story, but that is enough I suppose.” She rapped a gnarled finger on her breastbone. “I can see you have an honest heart. Now, mine tells me that I should help you, but your kind and mine have never been friends.”
“Nor have we been enemies,” Teah returned.
“There are some who would argue that your inaction is complicity in the Darkin’s whimsical slaughter of my people.”
“If you know of us, then you know that we are no friends to the Obsidian Queen and her subjects. Yet we are friends of peace, of seeing our children grow old, and that is why we stay hidden, much as you do.”
“Well said,” said the Medicine Woman. After a few long-felt beats she nodded. “Very well, we will help you. We will lead you to what you seek. Tomorrow. Tonight we must mourn.”
“Your offer is more than we could hope for,” Teah said. “However, we can ill afford to squander a day. Time is against us, in more ways than you can know.”
“The choice is yours,” returned the old woman, “but these tunnels are an infernal maze. You will not likely escape any sooner, if at all, even with a day’s head start.”
Teah looked to Elias who gave her a spare nod.
“Very well,” said Teah, “We accept.”
“One more thing,” said the Medicine Woman. “If you survive your quest, I would surely like to see some of those books.”
“Done,” sai
d Teah.
“This is good. The beginning perhaps of a friendship between our tribes.” She closed her eyes and grew still. “Enra, see to their needs. I must pray before the ritual tonight.”
Despite the dismissal Elias lingered as the others filed out. The Medicine Woman’s eyes opened halfway, and she peered at him with a lazy, dark-eyed gaze. “Honored Medicine Woman,” he said, “before I leave, I beg of you, tell me what you have seen.”
Her face creased with a wide smile. “You are persistent. Call me by my given name, Iatha. A black-skinned man has appeared to me many times over in a vision. He is very insistent that you find your way to him. He said that if you were to gain the ruins that you would know what to do.”
“Is that all?”
Iatha snorted. “I should think that is quite enough. Now, rest well, I should think it will be some time before you can do so again.”
Satisfied, Elias rose and joined the others outside the tent.
Enra took them to a common area situated in the center of the camp and fed them some mushrooms and a stringy meat that tasted like chicken. Elias elected not to ask what creature it came from. While they ate she explained the ritual they would bear witness to that night.
“We must help Inrek into the spirit world, for the pathways are not clear as they once were.”
“How do you plan to do that,” asked Elias.
“We will raise a pyre that all good spirits can see, and then smoke the sacred powder,” Enra replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Wayfarer (The Empyrean Chronicle) Page 29