“What do you mean no?” Joya asked, who seemed to think that Maeven’s argument was good.
The certainty of Angelica and Jovian’s statement brought everyone to a halt.
“What I mean is,” Angelica said, “Porillon is the one who affected the well, right? She allowed Chaos to leak in. She happens to be dalua, which feed off chaos and malcontent. Wouldn’t it then be plausible that the malignancy of the Well of Wyrding would not affect her as it does us?” Angelica shrugged. “I mean, after all, isn’t she used to working with the distortions of Chaos? She would know better than us how to wield it properly.”
“I suppose you are right,” Joya nodded. “I makes sense, after all; what’s the point of infecting the Well of Wyrding if you’re not going to be able to use your wyrd properly?”
“What would be the perk of devoting yourself to Chaos if you were not going to be able to work with it?” Maeven said in agreement.
“So we have a bigger problem than a terribly powerful sorceress behind us bent on our destruction,” Joya commented. “Instead we have a terribly powerful sorceress behind us that has full capabilities of her wyrd, which is no doubt enhanced by her perverse beliefs. Great!”
They led their horses for the rest of the day in silence, all of them thinking not only about Porillon now behind them, but also the fact that Joya would not be able to use wyrd to help them. This put a big damper on defending themselves.
“Is she close?” Jovian asked that night as they prepared the dinner he had hunted earlier. It was a limited dinner, as he was not able to stray far from camp, and there were few animals left in the forest.
“Closer than I’m comfortable with her being,” Maeven commented, scanning the forest behind them with a keen eye. The sun was just beginning to rise, and Jovian thought that maybe he should ask Tegaris tonight if there were any places they could hole up that would be more of a protection to them while they waited out Porillon; with any luck she would pass them by and not notice their camp.
“I think she can feel us, though,” Joya said when Jovian suggested this. “I mean, if she isn’t tracking us somehow, then how is she able to stay right behind us and not get lost in all this fog?”
Jovian grunted. He was out of options. “If it comes to battle Joya, we need you.”
“I know,” she sighed. “I will fight, but with the current state of things I’m not sure who exactly will benefit from it.”
“Only do what you have too, don’t touch your wyrd more than that. I have a feeling that the more you touch your wyrd the more corruption you invite into yourself.” Angelica stirred the simmering pot on the fire.
“That makes sense,” Joya agreed.
Watches came and went, and the next day saw them once more traveling.
Around midnight they got the sense of another presence. They weren’t sure what the presence wanted, or if it was even friendly. There was only the sense that something around them was not human; the rest they could only guess at.
“Halt, who goes there?” A voice asked from out of the darkness. It was a booming voice, one that filled them with terror and thwarted their every attempt to continue. They halted as the voice had commanded, thinking of the chaos dwarves said to haunt the Realm of Earth.
“I asked who goes there,” the voice said. Jovian tried looking around, but once they stopped it was like a web of wyrd was wrapped around them, and he couldn’t move much at all.
“Jovian, Angelica, Joya, and Maeven,” Jovian said.
“There is dalua in the woods tonight,” the voice said.
“There has been dalua in the woods for a long time now,” another voice said, joining the first, and though it sounded female it was just as booming as the one before it.
“We swear it’s not us,” Joya said, her cheek twitching uncontrollably, showing that she was in distress. “We are LaFaye,” she said in a whisper.
“LaFaye, you say,” the first voice repeated. A light appeared just below Joya’s knee and she noticed it was a tiny man who spoke. He was brown like the earth, and she wondered if he was not that color from lack of washing. Though he didn’t smell, he had the unmistakable air of one who was filthy. He looked like a wrinkled old man and stood no more than two feet, in a brown habit of the kind she’d seen bishops wear. The light came from a tiny torch that he held aloft as if to better study who he was talking to.
“Y-yes,” Joya stuttered, his presence doing nothing for her fear. She watched the small yellow light bobbing over his head, illuminating the gnarled features of his face as he scrutinized her. He appeared to be toothless, gnawing on his tongue as he appraised them critically, and one eye seemed bigger as he studied them from head to foot.
“Prove it,” he said, and other lights joined his from out of the fog-clotted darkness. Where had Tegaris gone? Joya wondered, now noticing that his light was nowhere in sight.
“How are we to prove it?” Angelica asked.
“If you are really of the LaFaye line, I’m sure that you can produce some feat of wyrd for us — do so!” The little man demanded, apparently not understanding just how impossible his request was.
“But the Well of Wyrding,” Joya protested. “Our wyrd could go horribly wrong and do something disastrous.”
“You have the protection of the gnomes for now,” the gnome before her said, apparently thinking her concern was not a good enough excuse for not doing what he demanded. “Do it.”
Joya closed her eyes, her breath becoming ragged and frightened. Now able to move, she held her shaking hands out before her, and in the center of her palms snapped a bright pink light several times, each time fizzling out. She tried to laugh it off nervously and took a few steadying breaths, looking as though she were whispering something to herself that none of them could hear.
She held her hands out again, more steady this time, and there glowed a slight light, pink and beautiful. It grew and grew, and before they knew it there was a little pink orb floating above them, casting light all around like a tiny sun.
The gnome nodded curtly and turned to the others. “You now,” he said to Angelica. “Do something,” the gnome waved his hands about as if he were showing her precisely what she should do.
“What if I don’t have any wyrd?” Angelica protested. The sensation of not being able to move was lifting from her now that the gnomes wanted something from her.
“You would lie to the gnomes?” he asked and Angelica had the distinct feeling that this was not something that should be done. She shook her head vigorously. “Then prove it!”
She didn’t know what to do. Angelica had never consciously worked her wyrd before. She decided to try for something like Joya had done and held her hands out. She closed her eyes determined and felt for the spark of wyrd within her, but could not feel anything.
All she needed was a spark of light, an orb, nothing more than a marble size. Angelica never realized how hard it was to produce even a modicum of wyrd when she didn’t know how. Joya and Porillon made it seem so easy, and the night that other force had taken over her body she had felt it course through her easily, but now, focusing on it, she couldn’t do anything.
She screwed up her face as she stared at her palms, hoping that the stigmatic white dots therein would spill forth some secret that might help her. They didn’t, and still she struggled, not realizing how intently she was watching her hands and how taut her body was becoming with the rising tension.
The gnome sighed and tapped a heavy, grimy foot on the ground. He crossed his arms and glared at her, and she was keenly aware of how hateful these little creatures were.
“Perhaps you were right,” he scoffed. “I guess you don’t have any wyrd.” Angelica knew that it was a taunt and didn’t give up; if anything she became more determined to produce even a whiff of smoke. With any luck she would not be free of the corruption and the cantankerous beast before her would choke as the tendril of smoke spun out of control. . . .
The gnome smiled, realizing how muc
h his words had affected her.
Relax, the voice of her aunt intruded on her as she scowled at her palms, which seemed to be spurning her every attempt at wyrding.
For several moments she struggled, clenching her eyes and straining for all she was worth to produce even a spark of wyrd, but she couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped finally. “I can’t control it.”
The gnome glared at her as if weighing the truth of her words. “You lie,” he reported. “I know you have wyrd in there,” he said, smacking her leg with his staff. “I must see a production of it before you are able to go anywhere!”
She sighed, defeated, and raised her hands again.
Now relax, Pharoh said. You are not trying to expel it by force as if it is a poison to your body. It’s a part of you, let it happen. See what you want to happen, and feel the wyrd responding to your desire.
Angelica closed her eyes and relaxed, muscle by muscle. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining the slithering heat that flowed through her body or if it was actually wyrd she was feeling, responding to her need and her aunt’s instructions. The heat spread through her until Angelica was filled up with it, and then it seemed to concentrate in her palms. Again, she was not sure whether she was imagining the pinpricks there from past experience, or if her palms were actually twitching. When the pain in the stigmata grew nearly unbearable, she gasped, knowing that she was producing something more than raw imagination.
“Today would be good,” the gnome said vehemently.
Without realizing how it happened, her desire and wyrd worked together, and a snap of purple light, like a weak form of lightning or maybe static, crackled at the gnome’s feet, and he danced away. When he finally stopped, he brushed his robes indignantly and glared at her all the harder, though he was obviously pleased with the feel of her wyrd.
Finally he looked away from her to Jovian. Jovian smirked a little. “The only wyrd I’ve ever done consisted of condemning a whole flock of Hobbedy’s Lanterns to the Otherworld.”
“Try something less drastic than,” the gnome grunted. “I do not fancy begging at the Black Gates tonight.”
Somehow Jovian’s wyrd responded to him, much unlike Angelica’s. However, it was not within his control. He closed his eyes and held up one hand, palm up, and tried to conjure a ball of light like the pink one still floating over Joya’s head.
His eyebrows knit together over his brilliant emerald eyes, and a gust of wind that none of them could feel rustled his curly blond hair, now matted and tangled from days on the road without washing.
The wind that was being produced around him, shifting his hair and damp clothes, would have been good enough, but then there was also a loud bang that reverberated through the surrounding trees and a red light so bright that it momentarily blinded everyone.
“Strong wyrd.” The gnome batted the air as if to ward off the light and glared at Jovian much as he had Angelica. “You need to learn control.”
The gnome turned to Maeven, grunted disdainfully and turned back.
“We have determined that you are not the dalua we seek. Continue on,” he said, and the gnomes began marshaling back into the woods.
“Wait!” Joya called. “The dalua you seek is following us.”
That stopped them, and together they conversed for a time. Finally the one who had accosted them before came back. “We hunt this dalua. You could be bait.”
Joya slapped her forehead, shaking her head at her stupidity.
“You would use three of the LaFaye blood to draw out the dalua?” Angelica asked, trying for her haughtiest air.
The gnome nodded. “Yep,” he said. “We figure that she is hunting you, so she wants you. We care not if you are LaFaye or fish, she wants you and we want her.”
“We have seen what she has done to sprites before,” Maeven told them. “It was not pretty.”
“You think to compare us with sprites?” There was laughter all around them from the other gnomes. “They are mere children. We are strong warriors of the earth.”
“Will we have your protection?” Jovian asked.
“Certainly,” the gnome said, but they were not sure if they could trust him.
“And we will be able to have control of our wyrd while being used as bait?” Joya asked.
“That is given that you can actually control your wyrd,” he said, peering at Angelica and Jovian. “You are now among the gnomes, your wyrd will act as normal.”
“Okay then, lead on.” At least for now, Joya thought to herself. She thought very little of being used as bait. They might be elementals, but she still could not get the imagine of hundreds of weeping children out of her mind, the sprites that Porillon had killed out of pure enjoyment before she had much need to do such a thing.
Joya knew before long they would have to escape, though she wasn’t sure how. If these were earth elementals, then escaping them would be a hard feat indeed, for it was said they could travel through the very earth itself instantly.
Where was Tegaris?
Pi was exhausted from training. It wasn’t an exhaustion of the muscles and the bones, like she had been used to in her life before the wyrders' academy, when she had helped her mother and father with their rice farm. No, this was an exhaustion of the mind, of the spirit. They were no longer able to practice wyrd because of the well, but studying all the complex motions and weavings was harder when you couldn’t practice them. At least for Pi. She learned better hands-on, walking through it with others as she wove the wyrd. She could read how to do something over and over again, but that wouldn’t help her.
By memory, she let her weary legs carry her up the spiral staircase from the basement of the wyrders academy in the Realm of Earth. If it wasn't for her intense hunger, she would have just gone to bed, but she had a few minutes left to grab something to eat before the cafeteria closed up for the evening.
It was difficult being in one of her last years at the academy; for some reason they wanted to cram so much information into her that she thought at any moment her head would erupt and paint the walls with her confusion and exhaustion.
She smiled at the thought.
"What are we laughing at?" Clara asked, her blonde head bouncing down the southern hall, joining Pi. They kissed quickly, and Pi wound her fingers through Clara's.
"Imagining my demise at the hands of information," Pi said, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear.
"That bad huh?" Clara asked.
"Just wait, you’re a novice now, but when you get to your last year, you will want to just quit."
"Do you want to quit?" Clara asked.
"No," Pi said with a sigh. "Sometimes I would like to."
They rounded the corner into the cafeteria just as the first blast rocked the foundations of the school. Pi stumbled and latched on to the doorway for support.
"What was that?" Clara asked, her blue eyes wild with fear. Pi shook her head.
Another blast hit the school, and there was more shaking. Pi cast a glance down the hallway as a shrouded figure stepped from the eastern hall and raised its hand. A volley of black wyrd blasted in a violent stream up the central tower of the academy. Other shrouded people joined the first figure, blasting wyrd up into the tower, and soon there was a deafening screech.
"Get back!" Flora commanded. Their pudgy teacher grabbed Pi and Clara and pushed them into a room. She locked the door behind them. They were in the northern hall.
"What's going on?" Pi asked, terrified.
There was no answer. Flora leaned into the door, her auburn hair creating a curtain, blocking Pi’s sight of what was going on outside. She tried pushing around Flora, but her teacher pushed her back. Pi stumbled into a desk, and it crashed loudly into the floor.
Clara, nerves stretched to near breaking by the excitement, let out a startled yip.
Flora shut the door quickly and silently. She leaned against it, closed her eyes and whispered a prayer.
“Are they caustics?�
�� Pi asked, crawling toward her teacher, not daring to even stand.
Flora shook her head, and glanced over her shoulder as if any moment someone would come through the door.
“What are they?” Clara whispered, going to stand the desk back up, though it was obvious whoever it was in the hall meant to destroy the entire academy; one overturned desk wouldn’t mean a thing.
“I don’t know,” Flora said.
There was screaming outside the door, and lights outside the classroom window, fleeing toward the forest. A blast of wyrd and a sizzle of lightning flared just beyond the window, and Flora sank to the floor, not wanting to be seen.
Pi gasped as she saw the silhouettes of fellow students beyond the window fall to a smoldering heap on the ground. The figure that had attacked them turned, looked like he was nearing the window and then stopped, cocked his head, and dashed to the right.
“What’s going on?” Clara asked, tears streaming down her face. She crouched now beside Pi and Flora.
Flora just shook her head.
“Chy!” Pi said. “My brother’s out there, I have to go to him.”
She stood and made for a back door that connected one classroom to the next, away from Flora.
"I got him," a blond man said, stepping through the doorway just before Pi could barge through it. Devenstar pulled a young child behind him, and Pi nearly cried out in relief when she saw her brother Chy with Clara's brother.
"Good, we need to get out of here," Flora said.
"What’s going on?" Pi asked.
"The academy is being attacked," Flora said simply, as if they couldn’t see that. "Deven, do you see anything out that window?"
Deven peered out the window they had just seen the attack through. "Nothing," he shook his head.
"Alright, through the window you go," Flora said.
“But people were killed as they ran!” Clara protested as Devenstar slid the window open.
“Then we will have to make sure that doesn’t happen to us,” Flora whispered.
"Are they caustics?" Pi asked again.
The Well of Wyrding (Revenant Wyrd Book 3) Page 3