The Spellstone of Shaltus

by Linda E. Bushyager

  Then he used his Sylvan powers. Transforming and shaping the wooden floor, he changed the area beneath the sculpture into mush. The statue toppled.

  The wood solidified once more, immobilizing the stone.

  The giant and the balding merchant rushed toward Quinen. Suddenly the wooden floor seemed to liquefy. It exuded branchlike arms that entwined around the men’s legs, pulling them down. The limbs lengthened into vine-sized tendrils. They tightened around the men like ropes. Several became strangling nooses around their throats.

  The men struggled frantically. Terror now filled their once vacant eyes.

  Watching them and the now smiling wraith-specter, Leah sensed that Shaltus had released his control and was enjoying seeing them suffer.

  As the two men strangled and died, Quinen turned toward Leah. The hemp-made rope binding her wrists and ankles twisted spasmodically, jerked, and began to unravel.

  Laughing, the wraith gestured at Quinen. A jagged bolt of force arced from its shadow-hand into the large Sylvan and hurled him across the room. Quinen smashed into a wall and lay still.

  With all her strength Leah strained against the frayed ropes, snapping them.

  She lunged toward Barbara. Her spellstone swung loosely from her half-sister’s throat.

  As Leah flung herself at the stone, the wraith’s power coiled around her, pulling her aside. She hit the floor and was frozen into immobility centimeters from her half-sister, but still too far from the stone.

  Barbara rose and danced away.

  A second statue groaned as it came alive. Unable to move, Leah could only stare in horror as it advanced toward her.

  The door burst open.

  Fourteen

  The phantom shape of Shaltus swirled into a dark cloud of force that vaulted across the room. It descended on the figures that entered—Michael Rowen and Timothy Fletcher.

  At that moment the statue halted in midstride as it returned to solid stone, the fire whooshed out, and Barbara collapsed near the wall.

  The force holding Leah diminished slightly as the wraith turned its attack on the two men. Although she was now able to move a little, every time she tried to stand or crawl the force tightened around her again like a python’s coils, preventing her from reaching her half-sister.

  Lightning struck within the cloud, but failed to pierce the men’s shield. Thunder echoed across the hall.

  The two figures separated. Michael Rowen stepped through the protective aura, passed through the wraith’s field of shadows and power, and ran across the room. Leah was surprised to see that he no longer wore his spellstone. Then she remembered his immunity to magic. Staring at the funneling shadows that still held Fletcher, she realized that the ex-priest remained within a green-gold shield. Evidently Rowen had transferred his spellstone to Fletcher before they’d entered the castle.

  The tall sorcerer reached Leah and tried to help her up, but she was not immune to Shaltus’s force and remained pinned to the ground.

  She fought the paralysis that froze her throat when she tried to speak.

  “What?” asked Rowen, seeing her lips try to move.

  She turned her arm slightly and gestured with her fingers toward the spot on her chest where her spellstone normally hung. Then she crooked her fingers toward Barbara.

  “Your stone. Of course. Where?” Rowen looked around. Puzzled, he followed her gaze, took a few hesitant steps in that direction, and then headed determinedly toward Barbara.

  The sound of stone grinding against wood made Leah’s head jerk up. She stared in horror at the shape coming to life behind Rowen. She tried to yell, to scream, to warn him, but no sound could escape from her lips.

  The statue’s marble arms reached for the sorcerer.

  But Barbara’s eyes snapped open. Rowen saw their terror. He turned and managed to avoid the stone-strong fingers. He drew his sword and slashed at the creature. The sword broke against the rock.

  Rowen dodged back. The clumsy automaton followed slowly.

  The tall sorcerer reached Barbara, pulled the spellstone from her neck, and tossed it toward Leah.

  The statue grabbed him.

  As the gem sailed through the air, Leah concentrated on it. It fell too far to the left. Desperately she forced her reluctant arms toward it. Then the chain was within her grasp.

  The Shaltus-sculpture dissolved into rubble as her spell hit it. Her aura flashed around her body to block the paralysis. She ran to Rowen.

  His left arm hung uselessly at his side, apparently broken, but otherwise he was unhurt.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he shouted.

  Leah reached for her half-sister and pulled the trembling girl upright. Her mind was still entombed in an incoherent terror from which it might never escape.

  “She’s insane,” said Leah softly. “We must take her with us. We can’t let Shaltus touch her again.”

  She covered her half-sister with her shield, but this time she took the precaution of binding the girl with a spell so that she could not be used as Shaltus’s mindless tool.

  Now the wraith hurled lightning at Leah and Rowen, while continuing its attack against the cloud-trapped ex-priest.

  Linking hands, Leah and Rowen ran to Fletcher’s aid. Barbara followed meekly under Leah’s control.

  Numbing cold hit as they attempted to enter the funnel-shaped shadows encircling Fletcher. Rowen seemed unaffected, but both Barbara and Leah shivered. Shafts of lightning expanded into engulfing sheets of flame. Barbara twitched as Shaltus attempted to reassert his control over her, but Leah’s spell was strong enough to block his influence.

  Wincing in pain, Rowen reached with his broken arm through the thunder and mist to take Fletcher’s hand. The slender ex-priest’s face was tense with fatigue and strain. As their fingers touched the men united their spells with Leah’s. The three counterattacked as one.

  The vortex of shadows and storm whirled around them frantically, seeking any weakness in their combined shields. Then the darkness faded. The lightning flashed sporadically. The black cloud split apart and dissipated. The air stilled. Apparently the wraith had expended a great deal of energy in controlling all the humans and in the series of attacks. It was weakening. “Let’s get out now,” ordered Rowen. He released Leah’s and Fletcher’s hands.

  Leah took her half-sister’s arm and followed as the two men ran toward the large double doors leading out of the Great Hall. Scattered thunderbolts pursued them.

  In the flashing light Leah noticed Quinen’s body against the wall. She froze. His boyish face was death-still.

  Distressed, she looked quickly away. She didn’t want to feel sad and regretful; she didn’t want to feel anything. Yet those emotions were there, along with a contradictory bitterness and resentment that left her uncertain of just how sorry she was to see him dead.

  Even though he’d aided the wraith, Quinen had not really wanted to see her hurt, and in the end he’d died trying to help her. If things had only been different, she thought wistfully, perhaps if she hadn’t been a half-breed … But she’d spent all her life wondering about might-have-beens—maybe it was time for her to accept realities.

  “Leah, let’s go.” Rowen was beside her. “Come on.” He touched her arm and gestured at the door that Fletcher held open.

  Nodding, Leah prodded Barbara forward.

  She didn’t look back as she followed him into the hall.

  Inside the corridor they moved sluggishly through foul air as thick and slimy as wet dough. It clung to their faces, making them choke and struggle for breath. The walls, floor, and ceiling seemed distorted into shimmering curves that rippled like water.

  A bookcase rocked on its base and crashed to the floor, almost hitting Rowen. A suit of armor stumbled out of a crossing hallway and blocked their path until

  Fletcher’s spell knocked it into a gleaming pile of metal.

  They reached the stairwell. When they began to descend, the stone steps suddenly altered shape to become a c
hute. It sent them falling, sliding, and spinning to a floor studded with knife-sharp jags of rock that would have stabbed them if Leah and Fletcher hadn’t been shielding the group. Even so, the fall was bruising, and Rowen’s already broken arm splintered again.

  “We must heal it,” said Leah, staring in dismay at the tip of bone protruding through his forearm. Lines of pain etched Rowen’s face.

  Fletcher rushed to Rowen and made him drink some tomaad.

  “Magic’s no help to him,” he reminded Leah. “He’s immune; but this Sylvan stuff may do some good. You’d better have some too.” He passed the canteen to Leah when Rowen finished.

  “It’s almost empty.”

  “Finish it. This one’s about half-full.” The ex-priest tapped the canteen strapped across his chest.

  “You shouldn’t have come after me,” said Leah. “You should have gone on to Shaltus’s spellstone.”

  “No.” Pain edged Rowen’s voice. “I couldn’t leave you. We’re a team.” The sincerity in his steel gray eyes disconcerted Leah.

  “I’ll splint that arm,” said Fletcher. He drew his sword, removed the scabbard from his belt, and began ripping his shirt into strips. Then he set the bone and used the scabbard as a splint. The tomaad’s restorative powers kept Rowen conscious throughout the ordeal.

  Shadows began to gather around them.

  “Hurry,” cried Leah, fearing another attack. Fletcher tied a wide piece of torn cloth around Michael Rowen’s shoulder as a sling. Then he picked up his unsheathed blade, extended it before him, and led the way down the hall.

  They entered into a long, mirrored corridor studded with doorways. Shadows hung like mist upon the air. Distorted reflections of themselves mimicked their movements. The images changed, forming grotesque shapes.

  Paper-thin reflections danced in the glass. They shifted into headless caricatures that hardly seemed human. Rippling faces suddenly leered out of the next pane; then the misshapen features whirled in the glass, and elongated heads dangled from inverted bodies.

  As the reflections abruptly flipped back up, a man’s shape loomed behind Leah’s image. Wizened face, emaciated body, flowing white beard and hair were outlined against the shadows at the end of the corridor.

  She turned. No one was there.

  Layers of shadows formed a pool of darkness where they had entered the hall. The face had not been Shaltus’s; yet it had been disturbingly familiar. Determinedly Leah looked away from the distorted images in the glass, grabbed Barbara’s arm, and hurried the girl after the two men.

  Cloth rustled behind her. Leather brushed against the stone floor.

  She spun around.

  He stood near one of the doorways a few paces away. His clothes were rags, his face was too thin, his bearing was that of a stoop-shouldered old man, but Leah knew him.

  “Father?” she whispered. It had to be an illusion. He couldn’t still be alive. Although she’d never seen his body, she’d sensed his death at the end of his duel with Shaltus.

  The gaunt figure crooked his fingers, gesturing her to follow. Then he disappeared through the doorway.

  A hand touched her shoulder. Startled, she jerked away.

  “Oh, Rowen.”

  “What is it?”

  “I thought I saw someone following us. He … he went in there.” She pointed at the dark opening. “I think it was, it may have been …” She hesitated, not wanting to say it, as if telling what she’d seen would confirm its reality somehow.

  “Who?” He studied her with concern.

  “It might have been … my father.”

  “It must have been an illusion. The wraith would not have let your father live so long.”

  “Of course, it must have been an illusion.” “Come on now.” He took her hand and led her back toward Fletcher.

  Had she seen only a wraith-controlled specter? Leah desperately wanted to believe that. Yet she couldn’t help thinking that Shaltus had only tortured Barbara, instead of killing her outright. Was it possible her father was still alive?

  The thought gnawed at her as they wound their way through shadow-twisted corridors to the keep’s entryway.

  They halted in front of the heavy oak door leading out to the courtyard. It was closed and locked. “I’ll get it,” said Fletcher. Rowen’s spellstone still hung around his neck. The ex-priest cupped it in his hands, pressed the stone against the lock, and began reciting a spell.

  Although Leah had gotten used to the castle’s odor of decay, a sudden breeze behind her brought her head around. She sniffed in dismay at the pungent odor of corruption. Then she jumped back in alarm.

  A scarecrow figure lunged out of the shadows. Eyes that might have belonged to her father stared vacantly at her. Gnarled hands brought up a sword.

  The blade crashed downward. It hit the aura of her shield, bounced off, and came at her again. This time the blade shimmered unnaturally. It turned translucent and cut through her protective field like a knife through cheese.

  Even though Leah realized that the weapon was not a true sword, only something made of magic and illusion, the sight of her father’s face kept her from reacting quickly enough to counter it.

  The blade touched her shoulder. It seared her skin as she backed away, seeming more like fire than cold steel.

  Then Michael Rowen was beside her. He shouted and tackled the specter. His good arm passed through the thing’s body as though it were made of air. He clutched at something substantial inside its “chest” and twisted at what he held.

  Shaltus’s laugh echoed over the hall. It was cavern—cold and hollow.

  The image of Leah’s father rippled like a disturbed reflection in water. It vanished. In its place stood a skeleton shape of rotting flesh, ragged cloth, and bone. Empty eye sockets stared out of a shrunken skin-covered skull that seemed more of a grotesque mask than what was left of the face that had belonged to a Lord of Carlton.

  Leah screamed.

  Long-dead hands dripping flesh and foulness tightened around Rowen’s throat.

  Fletcher shouted, hurling a spell at the thing. Its bones snapped apart.

  Gagging, Leah looked away as arms, legs, ribs, and head collapsed into a decomposing mass on the floor. She staggered to the wall and leaned against it for support.

  “Are you all right?” asked Rowen. He moved cautiously away from the crumpled skeleton.

  Leah forced her head up and nodded.

  Clenching her spellstone tightly in her right hand, she turned toward the disintegrating remains. She murmured a spell. Rags, bones, and flesh turned to dust. The wraith would not be able to reanimate them again.

  “I’ve got the door open,” said Tim Fletcher.

  Leah grabbed Barbara’s arm as they followed the ex-priest through the courtyard.

  Outside the castle walls lay the crumpled bodies of three Sylvan.

  “What happened to them?” asked Leah.

  “We saw them on the way in and managed to surprise them,” explained Fletcher. “I guess Shaltus was preoccupied with you at the time and didn’t notice us until we entered the castle.” He gestured toward the formal gardens behind the fortress. “They’ve left several horses over there.”

  Suddenly Fletcher’s eyes widened in surprise. Leah followed his gaze. There were large gaps in the neatly arranged flower beds. The gaps increased in frequency farther from the fortress.

  “The garden was partly illusion,” said Rowen. “Evidently the wraith is weakening. It has only been harassing us since we left the great chamber.”

  Leah shrugged. “It may be conserving its strength, but its power is enormous. And it will grow stronger as we near the central spellstone.”

  “Then we’d better get going before it can replenish itself.”

  With her half-sister in tow Leah followed the men into the garden.

  They found five Sylvan horses tethered by an enormous bronze statue of Shaltus. Shuddering, Leah looked away from the cruel features. Everything had happened too q
uickly, but now reaction was beginning to set in. Her whole body seemed jangled and tense.

  Rowen and. Fletcher each took a horse, while Leah and Barbara sat together on the third. They released the others.

  The Sylvan saddlebags contained a still-fresh supply of delaap nuts and some small flasks of tomaad, so they ate a hurried meal as they rode through the garden.

  Lightning cracked the sky. Clouds that had been fluffy cumulus pillows swirled together, lowered, and darkened. In moments a torrential rain swept across the ground. The paths became muddy streams. Fierce hail slammed into them. Lightning struck the earth repeatedly.

  At the same time phantom shapes of air and magic lunged at the horses unexpectedly, making them rear and bolt. Fletcher’s mount twisted crazily, nearly throwing him. Leah had to use her Sylvan powers to control the animals.

  Dark pits, like shallow graves, appeared in the path ahead. The horses swerved into the flower beds. Rose thorns raked their legs.

  Numbing terror pounded their minds as it had when they’d first entered Shaltus’s territory. Lightning flashed faster. It seemed to light the sky continuously.

  Without tomaad to replenish the energy they’d spent fighting the wraith they would have been lost.

  Leah spotted a white marble pavilion silhouetted against the rain-drenched sky on the crest of the next hill, a little more than a kilometer away.

  She pointed it out to the others. “I believe the spellstone of Shaltus is there,” she shouted. The incessant thunder almost drowned her words.

  “We’ll never make it,” cried Fletcher. His face was pale with strain and fatigue.

  Lightning hit him directly, flaring outward in a brilliant white nimbus as his shield absorbed and reflected the blow. His spell deflected a second and a third bolt, diverting them into a nearby fountain. As they hit they blew the marble and bronze apart. Water sizzled, sparks cascaded across the ground, and the air crackled.

  Leah felt her control of the horses begin to slip. Their minds were numb with fear that was requiring more and more effort to block. Barbara had sagged forward, faint from exhaustion, terror, or both.

  Leah glanced up to find Rowen’s gray eyes regarding her with concern. He seemed tired, and he must have been in agony, but his immunity to magic at least protected him from the Shaltus-induced fear that tried to paralyze Leah and Fletcher.