BRYTE'S ASCENT (Arucadi Series Book 8)

by E. Rose Sabin

“I learned that lesson once before—or thought I had.”

  “Some lessons must be relearned many times.”

  “I can’t face what I did. I can’t face myself.”

  “You can help us save Stethan,” Bryte put in. “You took him to Lord Inver. Now we have to get him back.”

  He did look up then. His eyes were red; perhaps he’d been weeping. “It’s too late,” Oryon said.

  Bryte ran and knelt beside him, her heart racing. “Why do you say that? Did Inver kill him? Is he dead?”

  “I meant it’s too late for me,” Oryon said. “I don’t know whether Stethan’s alive or dead. If Lord Inver killed him, I didn’t see it.”

  “You don’t know where he hid him?” Bryte demanded, sure Oryon knew more than he was telling.

  “He does not want to know,” the Dire Lord said.

  Oryon groaned.

  “The first step in your redemption is to confront your fears,” Lord Claid said.

  “What does that mean?” Bryte asked just before the knowledge struck her. “His fear—it’s of these Dire Realms. You said Lord Inver was here. Stethan is, too, isn’t he?”

  “I suspect so,” the Dire Lord said. “And so does Oryon.”

  “Is he … is he dead?” Kanra asked in a trembling voice.

  “I do not think he is—not yet,” Lord Claid answered. “But you must hurry if you are to save him. And to save him you must defeat Lord Inver.”

  “How can we, if he’s dead already and he’s protected by evil Dire Lords?” Bryte asked, turning away from Oryon to face Lord Claid. “You expect us to do the impossible?”

  “It has been done before, as Oryon knows.”

  “Not by me,” Oryon muttered. “And none of us has as much power as—”

  “There are more of you,” the Dire Lord interrupted. “What no one of you could do alone you may accomplish together.”

  “Maybe, if Lina were here …”

  “Ah, yes, you and she share power. Well, I think she is not far. Perhaps she should join us.”

  With snarls and hisses, a panther fell into their midst, its black pelt rendering it almost invisible against the black onyx floor, except for angry yellow eyes like twin flames coming out of darkness.

  “Lina!” Oryon jumped to his feet and strode to the panther’s side.

  The panther metamorphosed. Lina straightened, green eyes blazing. She raised a hand and slapped Oryon’s face. “You’ve got your senses back, haven’t you?” she said. “So you know what you’ve put us all through because of your stupid pride.”

  He stepped back, rubbing his cheek.

  “He knows,” the Lord Claid said.

  “How’d you get loose from the Peace Officers?” Bryte asked.

  “Those fools!” Lina snorted. “I gave you time to get away, and then I changed. It was easy after that. I knew you’d go right to the mound, so I went there. I’ve been prowling all over it, trying to discover how to use the nexus to get here.”

  “One gets here only by the will of a Dire Lord,” Lord Claid said. “And only when the time is right. Now, you are all here. You should wait no longer.”

  “Where’s my power net?” Lina asked.

  Oryon dug into his pocket, drew out what looked like a tangled mess of thread, and handed it to her.

  “What have you done to it?”

  “Uh, I used it to practice some knots.”

  “Knots!” She gave him a scathing look and worked at untangling the mess.

  He watched her with the ghost of a smile playing about his lips. Bryte took that as an encouraging sign. Maybe he was closer to being recovered than she’d thought.

  The almost-smile disappeared when Lord Claid said, “It’s time.”

  “And what are you going to be doing, Lord Claid, while we’re facing Lord Inver?” Oryon’s tone was sarcastic and bitter. “Why aren’t you going with us?”

  “Where I’m sending you, I cannot go. But I will be helping you. I will be preventing the Dire Lords who control Lord Inver from aiding their protégé, so that you will have to deal only with Inver and not with his masters. That will be no easy task, but it will put you on equal footing with Lord Inver. Now come.”

  He walked to another of the many doors and opened it. Together they passed through, Lina still working at the threads rather than watching where she was walking, so that one of them had to grab her elbow and steer her in the right direction. Bryte left that task to Kanra and Ileta; she figured she should keep an eye on Oryon, since Lina was not. And next to Lina, Bryte knew Oryon better than the others, knew him well enough to know that he was scared, really scared, and trying hard not to show it.

  They had walked through the doorway not into a pleasant sitting room as before but onto a vast, flat plain under a sky ablaze with three suns, one near the horizon, one almost directly overhead, and the third in between. The one near the horizon glowed a baleful red; the one right above shone a fiery yellow, and the one in between was reddish purple and pulsed like a beating heart.

  The light of the three suns reflected off the burning sands, nearly blinding them. Their feet blistered from heat that penetrated the soles of their shoes. Heat waves shimmered and dust devils danced around them.

  Still preoccupied with her tangled power net, Lina stumbled against a rock, and, when Ileta caught her and kept her from falling, she kicked the offending object.

  It rolled over, revealing itself as a grinning skull. Bryte put a hand on Oryon’s arm to steady him, but he brushed it off. “I’m okay,” he said, but Bryte heard his heart pound and saw the pulse beating in his temple.

  The heat was unbearable. Sweat poured down Bryte’s face, dripping into her eyes, blinding her. Dust mixed with the sweat. Sand plugged her nostrils until she had to keep one hand over her nose and mouth so she could breathe.

  “I think he tricked us,” Kanra said, coughing between words. “There’s no one here. No one could live here.”

  “This isn’t a place for the living,” Oryon said. “He didn’t trick us.”

  Bryte guessed that he was right. Either she was hallucinating, or she saw faces in the dust devils, hideous, leering faces that dissolved and reformed as the dust devils swirled and skipped over the sand.

  “I can’t see where I’m going,” Ileta said, trying to wipe sand out of her eyes.

  “Where are we going?” Kanra wailed. “The door we came through is gone. I think we’re lost.”

  “No,” Oryon said, as the dust devils melded into one towering cloud that bore down on them. It was shaped vaguely like a human figure, its arms reaching out to them.

  Lina growled.

  Ileta screamed.

  “Power-Giver help us!” Oryon shouted, and it might have been a prayer.

  The thing had a face—a massive face, with a mouth that opened as it came closer, ready to consume them.

  “Kanra, shield us!” Bryte shouted as the gigantic mouth gaped over them.

  The huge mouth snapped shut. The sand giant backed off and broke up into separate sand devils once more, roaring and shrieking as they danced.

  And then Bryte heard it: a child’s terrified cry. The others could not have heard over the roaring of the wind and the shrieks of the dancing devils.

  She put her hand on Oryon’s arm. “Stethan,” she said, spitting sand out with the words. “I hear him.”

  “Where?”

  “Not sure. It’s hard to tell, with all the noise.”

  At that moment the sand devils coalesced again, this time into some sort of gigantic serpent, not quite a snake: it had arms and legs, tiny in proportion to the thick, long body, which was of a size to swallow several people.

  The thing slithered closer. Bryte backed nearer Kanra and hoped that her shielding ability would hold.

  “There!” Lina shook out the last tangle and rolled the thread into a neat ball, working carefully as though nothing at all was happening.

  As soon as she’d finished, Oryon grabbed her hand. “Power,”
he said, and she nodded.

  They were sharing power. About time, Bryte thought. The serpent creature no longer looked insubstantial, a thing of sand. It was solid, its skin a bright coppery color that reflected the light of the highest sun. That light blazed outward, making it even more difficult to see.

  The thing opened its mouth, its jaw dragging the ground. Leaning against Kanra, Bryte grabbed Ileta and held her close.

  Out of the creature’s enormous, gaping maw a man walked: Lord Inver. He wore a velvet robe of a shade of purple identical to that of the middle, pulsating sun. Light from that sun radiated toward him, bathing him in a sickly, purple aura. His clothing and flesh remained free of the sand that afflicted the rest of them.

  “Where’s Stethan?” Bryte shouted. “Is he in there?” She pointed to the still open mouth of the serpent. She hoped the boy’s cry had not come from there, but it was hard to tell, since the sound had not been repeated.

  Lord Inver laughed. “He’s close, but he’s not where you can reach him.”

  “If you’ve harmed him …” Bryte couldn’t finish.

  Lord Inver laughed again. “Look at you, pitiful fools. You think to oppose me here. Don’t you realize that death has increased my strength? Did the Dire Lord who sent you here not tell you that?

  “But no, he wouldn’t. Nor would he have told you why he did not dare come himself, but sent you puny mortals to attack me. You don’t stand a chance here.”

  Oryon moved to the front of the group. “You think dying has made you immortal?” he asked. “Think again. If it confers greater power, I have twice as much as you, because I’ve died twice in these Dire Realms. But I’m still mortal, and so, I think, are you.”

  “We shall see.”

  With those ominous words, Lord Inver made a small gesture, and the purple mist expanded to envelop them all.

  Bryte gulped for air, got none. Black spots swam before her eyes; her knees grew weak and rubbery.

  Oryon raised his arms and spoke a word Bryte did not understand. The poisonous mist dissipated. Bryte could breathe again, despite the sand filling the air.

  Lina edged up beside Oryon and tossed the power-net at Lord Inver. It flew up, hovered in the air over his head for a moment or two, then rolled back into Lina’s hand.

  “Such paltry tools,” Lord Inver said with a laugh, though Bryte had seen his anger flare when the purple aura dissolved.

  She summoned her own rage light, let it blaze, feeding on her anger at this cruel and arrogant man. Lord Inver clapped his hands. Her light did not diminish, but his aura returned, and the light did not penetrate it; Lord Inver moved in purple shadow.

  Her companions had no such protection. “Hey, Bryte, we can’t see,” Oryon whispered.

  From behind her Kanra and Ileta added their pleas for vision. But Bryte could not turn off the rage-light. It had to subside on its own. She had not hampered Lord Inver, but she had given a possibly fatal handicap to her companions.

  Lina changed to her panther form and launched herself at Lord Inver, but she was as blind as the rest. He stepped aside and let her land heavily on the hot sand.

  “Enough of this foolishness,” he said, and motioned to the huge serpent, which crawled forward, its mouth wide open, ready to feed. And because the others were blinded, they could not see it. Maybe they would hear or smell it.

  Its scales grated across the sand. From its mouth came heat and a fetid odor that turned Bryte’s stomach.

  She had to do something, but what? Fold time? That would only postpone this inevitable confrontation.

  In front of her the serpent raised its head. Its mouth loomed over her; she would be the first it swallowed.

  She shrank back, and without realizing what she did, she put her hands into her pockets. Her fingers closed over the saltshaker.

  She withdrew her hand, clutching the saltshaker. The mouth began to close over her. She twisted off the top of the shaker and tossed the salt that filled it into the open maw.

  The serpent backed off, rose up, head waving in the air, hissing, its small forelegs waving wildly. Then it dissolved into sand.

  Bryte’s surprise overrode her anger; her rage-light faded. But Lord Inver’s rage was kindled; the purple hue of his face was due to more than the light of the middle sun.

  He raised his hand and sent gouts of fire blazing toward them. Oryon leaped forward and sent an answering blast of fire to meet Inver’s. While Kanra’s shield protected the rest of the group, Oryon and Inver battled with fire, casting ever greater and fiercer workings at each other, generating such intense heat that Ileta collapsed in a faint, Kanra was panting, her face scarlet, and Bryte felt dizzy and had to struggle for every breath.

  Only Lina, in her panther form, seemed unaffected. While Lord Inver was distracted, Lina slipped away and made a wide circle around the combatants to come up behind Inver. Bryte could only hope Lina would succeed in attacking Inver before the heat destroyed them all.

  Oryon created fiery horses that raced toward Inver, and Inver responded with a shower of blazing spears that struck the horses down. Oryon sent a fire-dragon; Inver countered with a flaming gryphon to devour the dragon. Oryon created a comet that flashed down on Inver, but Inver met it with a flaming star that absorbed it and then aimed its burning rays on Oryon.

  Oryon staggered and fell, but so did Inver, not from the effect of Oryon’s final fiery creation but because the panther had leaped on his back, toppling him and digging her claws into his shoulders while her teeth tore at his neck.

  She had killed him before, but he had not been destroyed. Bryte had no time to wait to see if this new would attack succeed any better. She rushed to Oryon and bent down to check him. He was breathing. Still alive, barely.

  Again she heard a cry. She straightened, left Oryon, and beckoned to Kanra to come with her, but Kanra did not see. She was kneeling by Ileta, trying to rouse her.

  Bryte moved off on her own. She wove through the still dancing sand devils, listening for another cry to give her the direction. The cry was not repeated.

  The swirling sand made it difficult to see, but the flat plain offered few hiding places. She searched for boulders big enough for a child to be hidden behind. Stethan might be bound and unable to move. The few boulders of such a size were spread widely apart, so that it took all her failing strength to run from one to another.

  She soon lost sight of the group she’d left behind. Nor did she find Stethan or again hear his cry. She began to doubt that she had heard it before. She leaned against the last boulder around which she’d searched, her hope exhausted along with her strength, and tears streamed down her face, making runnels through the sand caked on it.

  “Bryte! Where are you?” The call came from far away; yet she recognized Lina’s voice. “Bryte,” the call came again. “Come back. We need you.”

  She started off in the direction she thought Lina’s call had come from, but was soon confused by the dust devils. “Lina,” she called, “Where are you?”

  No answer came. Bryte broke into a run but could not sustain the pace; she was too tired, too frightened, and too unsure of where she was going. She tried shouting again. “Lina, Kanra, call out. I can’t find you.”

  This time she thought she heard a faint response, off in the opposite direction from the one in which she’d been heading. She set off in that direction. A fierce wind arose, forcing her to stop and bend over, covering her face and protecting her body from the lashing sand.

  Again she was close to despair. Then she recalled her third gift. If she could fold time back to the point when she’d left the group, she would surely not change the outcome of Lina’s attack on Lord Inver. Knowing that her foray had not succeeded in finding Stethan, she would not make that mistake again, but nothing else should change.

  She closed her eyes and tried to recall exactly where she had been standing and where each of the others had been at the moment she’d heard Stethan’s cry, just before she’d run off. It was hard
to breathe, hard to concentrate with the needles of sand attacking every bit of exposed flesh.

  She’d been kneeling by Oryon, she remembered, and had just ascertained that he was alive when she heard the cry. She’d straightened, called for Kanra. No, beckoned to Kanra. But Kanra was tending Ileta, and hadn’t seen.

  Lord Inver had fallen, and Lina was tearing at his back and neck. Bryte wanted to return to that instant when she was poised to run but had not yet set off. As closely as she could, she recreated that moment in her mind.

  She heard the cry, opened her eyes, and saw the scene as she’d remembered it. She even took a couple of running steps before catching herself, the sand that covered her reminding her of her desperate straits of a moment ago (moments from now?) and her failure to find Stethan.

  She returned to her position next to Oryon.

  She had folded time, just as Lord Claid had said she could! But she was no closer to finding Stethan.

  Lina, still in panther form, was tearing at Lord Inver. Bryte left Oryon’s side to stand beside the fallen lord. “Lina, that’s enough,” she said. “I need to talk to you. Change back.”

  Never certain how much Lina understood in her panther form, she was relieved to see the panther leap off of Lord Inver, its jaws covered with blood.

  In a moment Lina stood on the opposite side of Lord Inver’s body, looking across at her.

  “Is he dead?” Bryte asked.

  “I think so,” Lina replied. “The question is, will he stay dead?”

  “I don’t know, but you need to see to Oryon. He’s alive, but he’s unconscious, and I couldn’t bring him to. And we have to find Stethan. I’ve heard him cry—at least, I think it was him—but I don’t know where to look.”

  Lina wiped blood from her mouth and hands and ran to Oryon. She bent down, turned him over, checked his breathing, and said, “He needs a healer, fast.”

  Kanra stood and added, “We also need help for Ileta. She’s been badly affected by the heat.”

  “We can’t leave until we find Stethan and make sure Lord Inver won’t come back to life this time,” Bryte said.

  “We have to save whom we can,” Lina said. “We can’t sacrifice Oryon and Ileta for a mere possibility of finding the boy.”