“But,” she said in response to the worried look on Ria’s face. “We, uhm, bought six camels.”
Niri looked consideringly at Ty. “Do you think you can get us there?”
He shrugged. “They showed us the old route on a map that we bought as well. Ocean of water or sand, navigation is the same.”
They spent a quiet evening on the boat, knowing it would be their last for some time. Lethargic from the late night and its stresses, they lingered on deck as the setting sun erupted in shades of scarlet and gold. Ty peeled back and then stowed the main sail to let the slight wind drift across the boat.
Finally stars filled in the violet black sky. The desert released its stored heat. The breezes from shore held a refreshing tinge in the evening air. With every porthole, hatch and skylight open, the cabin finally cooled off as well. Along the shoreline, small communal cook fires burnt. Ty saw Niri’s gaze on them.
“Nomads, from the desert. They don’t like to sleep within the city.”
Their camels and sleek desert horses called hauntingly from the shadows beyond the flames. The hollow sounds echoed from the buildings of the town and across the water.
Lavinia sat with her back against her brother. Ria was stretched across the other long bench in the cockpit while Niri sat with her back to the mast, watching the sky and the desert with a dread that grew with the night. Lavinia nearly fell from the bench, catching herself at the last moment. Ty chuckled at her sleepy startlement.
“I think it is time for bed.”
Ria glanced over groggily and got to her feet. Ria stumbled below while Lavinia paused, thinking Ty was going to follow her down. Instead, Ty hesitated then walked to where Niri sat near the bow of the boat. He dropped gracefully down next to her, one leg sliding to dangle over the gunwale.
“You should sleep too,” Ty said quietly to Niri after a moment of silence. Lavinia watched, unexpected tears stinging her eyes. She envied them their closeness, even if it leaned more towards friendship than what she shared with Darag. Lavinia hadn’t expected to miss him so much.
He had warned her. Darag had told Lavinia that she would be drawn to come back to Lus na Sithchaine so strongly that even her bones ached from it. There was such a pull north that she felt she could be blind and still find her way back. But it was more than that, which Lavinia was beginning to realize as she watched Niri and Ty. It wasn’t just a connection through Darag to his tree, their tree now. She missed his arms, his smile, the light in his green eyes. She missed how much she laughed when she was near him. Lavinia’s lip trembled and a tear slipped over her cheek.
Niri glanced over at Ty, blinking slowly as she focused on him.
“You know, I’ve never been more than a day’s journey from the sea. I was born on an island. Even the Temple of Solaire is between the ocean and the Lake of Tears.”
“Even in the desert there is water. You’ll see.”
Niri held his gaze for a moment before nodding slightly. Ty stood and pulled Niri lightly to her feet.
“But I can’t do anything about exhaustion.”
Niri chuckled at him. A devilish smile chased concern from Ty’s face. Before Niri could react, Ty pushed her over the edge of the boat. Lavinia gasped, but she heard Niri laugh as she came up for air. Ty gave Lavinia a roguish grin and pushed Lavinia ahead of him into the cabin.
“She’ll swim awhile. I’m willing to bet on it.”
Lavinia chuckled, a bit of the longing easing for the moment.
They did their best to secure the boat in the morning. Ty took it out alone and tossed the anchor at a lonely spot sheltered from the wind and current. Surprise rippled across Niri’s face when Ty dived into the water and swam back to shore.
“I thought you hated water?” She asked him when he came back, a grin on his face.
He shook his wet hair at her. “It has its uses. Hopefully, it will be enough to keep the boat safe.”
Niri nodded, her gaze no longer focused. “I’ll have a water spirit watch it. Everyone will think it is cursed.”
The camels were ready on the edge of town. The food and water were strapped to the extra two camels along with the bedding. Lavinia glanced once more back to where Ty had anchored the boat, her hand going to the wooden pendant that hung at her throat.
“You miss him,” Ty said to his sister. Lavinia’s eyes filled as she nodded. Ty put an arm around her. “Soon, you’ll be heading north again soon.”
The ache in her was almost too much to bear. If Darag felt half of what she did, Lavinia couldn’t imagine what had driven him to have left Lus na Sithchaine twice. The promised tears slipped from Lavinia’s eyes as she hugged her brother. For a moment, the two siblings were one dark silhouette against the blazing desert. Then, Ty released her and helped Lavinia onto her camel. Getting onto his, Ty took a heading. With a nudge to his mount, he led the way into the desert.
CHAPTER 29
THE TEMPLE OF ICE
Darag pulled the hood of his cloak over his head, his face lost to the shadows of the deep cowl. The air had turned noticeably cooler. He guided the small canoe he paddled to the side of the River of Turcot. Ice clung to the rocks along the shore even though it was just past mid-summer. He looked up through the trees to the towers that were visible above the swaying branches. Their stone sides shimmered with frost in the morning light.
He could no sooner have stayed waiting in Lus na Sithchaine as he could have asked Lavinia to remain behind while her brother and friends sailed south. It was Laith Lus asking Niri if she were going to the Temple of Ice that had given Darag the idea. That and the story of the war that Lavinia had related when she had visited Laith Lus and Niri. The hope was tenuous, that he could find some answer to what had happened during the war, but it was action rather than waiting.
Unease had risen in him from the moment the small sailboat with Lavinia onboard had slipped from view around the bend of Drufforth’s harbor. If restlessness had once vibrated in him so that he had left the Forest of Falin, Darag had been unsure to what lengths this growing anxiety would push him towards.
He knew Lavinia loved her friend, but Ria’s gifts troubled him. The Kith did not trust the Church, but it did not mean he would welcome a skill that possibly had started a war. And if it hadn’t been magic yielders trying to gain power, if it had been an Order of Fire, the same Order that sent Niri to the Temple of Dust . . . ? The thought twisted like a growing thing in Darag’s gut. What if Lavinia, Niri, Ria, and even Ty were walking into a trap? Was the Curse and its mission of hunting down magic yielders a remnant of an ancient war or did such things still call the attention of the Church and especially the Order of Fire?
Darag pulled the canoe out of the frost rimmed river and tied it off to a small tree. His breath was visible in the still air. Not a sound echoed through the forest. In all his years and travels, Darag had never felt out of his element. Now he faced the ancient turrets of the Temple of Ice and wondered if Niri or Laith Lus would have felt the same unease.
Darag’s thoughts shifted to Lavinia, far away now across the straight. Maybe even already on the Southern Shore. Darag’s jaw tightened along with the muscles across his stomach. With a deep breath, he plunged through the ice encrusted brambles.
The scant foliage at the edge of the river gave out to a world eternally held in winter. The trees were bare frames. A dusting of snow swept across the ground between the frozen trunks. Pockets of ice filled the hollows.
Darag walked silently, pausing between each step. He scanned the ground and strained to hear any sound, any warning. He had never seen such a thing. The outer wall of the Temple rose before him. It wove through the forest around trees, rising and falling like a frozen wave of stone. Darag looked along its length in both directions. There was no opening in sight.
He placed a hand on the icy stones and paused. He could shape a doorway easily or lower the wall, but his instincts were shouting against it. He did not know if magic knew time. Would old spells react to his
use of power? Would he step into a magical ambush set in a war nine hundred years earlier?
“What am I doing here?”
Darag’s voice was the only sound. He pulled back his hand, fingers already numb. His resolve wavered. He hadn’t considered not being able to use his skills. All Kith were born with power. It was a part of who they were. Already unnerved, Darag wasn’t certain if he could face the Temple of Ice as an ordinary man. He rubbed his eyes.
“There is nothing here and has not been for nine hundred years. Am I afraid of nothing?”
It was the notion that he still had power, could summon it any time, that really made him decide. He was simply choosing not to use his skills unless there was a need. With a sigh, Darag picked left and started to walk along the wall.
It took fifteen minutes before he came to the first gate. It must have once been a small recessed door through the wall. Now, the opening was stretched and warped out of shape to a size twice Darag’s height. Some of the stones were melted and flowed down over the deformed wood. Ice filled the gaps where the door no longer it fit.
Darag stared at the nightmarish image a moment. Then he turned and walked on without trying to see if the door would open. If he wasn’t using his powers he was not going to walk through a portal deformed by another’s. It was over an hour later and going on afternoon when he found the main gate.
A canal cut through the forest and crossed under what was once an elaborate arch. Intricate carvings were visible on the broken remains of stone scattered across the frozen field. The canal was encased in ice. Sections of decorated stone larger than a six person canoe jutted from the frozen water. The cracks caused by their impact still stretched as white scars.
There was nothing left of the gate beyond melted metal brackets which twisted like skeletal arms into the frigid air. The entrance to the Temple grounds stood open across the debris studded ice. From the destroyed main gate, Darag could see an inner courtyard where the frozen water of the canal turned to skirt the inner wall and flow into the embrace of an ice covered lake. Where the canal curved, a dock stood before a wide gate in a high stone wall.
For a moment as Darag surveyed the scene his mind brought up an image of Lavinia, laughter in her bright blue eyes. A tender smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. For the first time in his memory, Darag wished he wasn’t alone. He wanted Lavinia by his side. The quiet of the place created a crushing loneliness, only deepened by the endless cold.
Without her, I am lonely.
He chuckled at the thought. The memory of Lavinia in his arms warmed him, spirit and flesh. She had upset the balance of his life and finally set it right.
With Lavinia close in his thoughts, Darag stepped onto the ice of the canal. He gave the blasted stone a wide berth even though the ice felt solid. Water was not his element and he had no desire to have the ice crack under his feet. Beyond the gate and past the ruined arch, Darag’s cautious steps led him back to solid ground. He kept his eyes on the wooden dock and the dark entrance looming over it. As he walked closer, the scorch marks along the stones and dock became visible. Darag gritted his teeth.
It wasn’t until Darag stood before the inner gate that he could see the amount of damage. The remaining wood of the gate hung in charred splinters from the stout metal ribs between the stone walls. The fire had been so intense that the rocks on either side were brittle. They crumbled at Darag’s touch. It was almost enough to turn him around.
“The use of fire does not mean the Order of Fire is responsible,” Darag hissed under his breath. Rationally, he knew it was true. But in his soul, he was already certain. The wind blew snow in his face. It felt like it went straight through him.
He had to be sure. For Lavinia’s sake, he had to convince his rational mind that what his instincts were vibrating with was true. He had to stop the war within himself so that he knew what to do. Cautiously, Darag walked through the seared remains.
Through the recessed inner gate, snowflakes fell as they were swept from the ramparts four stories above. Darag walked across the narrow stone courtyard into a world that was all the more erie for its peace and quiet. Five frosted steps led to arched doors which stretched up another half Darag’s height. Shards of blue and green glass clung to the remains of the ribbons of metal and framework. For all the exterior gates and walls, the door to the inner temple had been nothing more than ornamental. Darag shook his head and stepped over the splinters of glass.
Hours later fading sunlight glinted through ice encrusted windows high within the Temple compound. Shallow pinks frosted the sky above the sinking pale disk of the sun. It was a winter sunset. Darag shivered. He found it hard to believe that summer was half a days walk away. The sun had dropped nearly to the horizon as he had searched the empty Temple. Now, there was no way to escape the circle of ice before dark. It was too late in the day. With sinking resolve, Darag realized he would have to spend the night in the frozen Temple.
The afternoon had brought only more questions. He had explored a majority of the silent Temple finding kitchens, dormitories, work and study rooms. Tables had been overturned, a chair in one room shattered against a wall, but mostly everything sat eerily undisturbed. There was no sign of any fight after Darag had stepped through the shattered doorway. The lack of violence and deadly cold lent the silent ruin a haunted feel.
The evening wind howled against the stones of the building. It was the only sound and echoed down the length of the hallway. He walked along what must have once been an ornate passageway with broad views of the canal and forest along one side, the lake and gardens to the other. The hallway connected the two parallel wings of the Temple, swooping between the two in a graceful arch of stone.
Before him, the hallway split to skirt an opening in the floor demarcated by a delicate railing. With a start, Darag realized he stood in the central tower directly over the entrance hall. Darag looked down along icicle columns that plunged into the now frozen pool that was the floor of the room. Above him, a glass dome let in the last of the day’s light.
When Darag had crossed the entrance room, he had been caught between the biting cold seeping up from the floor and the sudden flash of what the room had been before when this had been the Temple of Mist. The frost on the blue and lavender ornamental tiles could have been fog that rose from the tumbling waterfalls to the dome overhead. The air would have been warm and humid, his feet in shallow water. A breath in of air so cold it made him cough dispersed the image. The Temple now held only ice and death.
The floor of the entrance hall fell into shadows. Darag shivered remembering the dark hallway directly across from the broken door. From the windows above, Darag realized there was no building behind the central tower. The arched opening led to a room under the gardens. Unease writhed in him like a growing snake.
The darkness beyond the opening had been the only time he had sensed another presence that day. It had felt alive with unseen eyes, shifting in depth and darkness. His gaze had not been able to penetrate the dimness as if the entrance looked into night itself. Now he would be sleeping somewhere above whatever lurked in that room. All because he could not stand to wait in Lus na Sithchaine for Lavinia. Because he worried about her but could find no excuse to join her. Finally, Darag pondered the danger he had put himself in.
The last glow of the sun touched the glass dome above him. The temperatures dropped further. The wind was a constant mournful howl. Wet snow hit the panes of the windows with the dull thuds of soft feet shaking at the glass. It was far too late to leave.
Darag hurried down the last sweep of the arch, connecting again with the western mass of the Temple. The rooms opening from the central hallway were stately chambers, much nicer than the dormitories he had found far below. These rooms contained neatly made beds, desks, and, most importantly, fireplaces.
It took a half hour more to gather extra wood from rooms along the hallway and bring it back to the chamber on the south west corner that Darag had chosen. It looked out o
ver the blasted main gate. By the time he pulled out flint to strike a fire, his hands were shaking with the cold despite having pulled blankets around himself. His lips cracked from frost formed by his exhaled breath.
Another try and the flint sparked, igniting a pile of shavings. The smoke hung suspended for a moment before drifting up the chimney slowly. He blew on the fitful flames, catching the dry wood far quicker than he would have guessed. Now the smoke pulled toward the chimney, racing up to join the wind overhead. Darag closed his eyes, worry oozing out of him. He had truly thought the flue would be blocked and that he faced freezing to death before dawn. Lavinia would never forgive him. Darag smiled.
It was a fitful night sleep at best. Darag spread the blankets he had scavenged next to the fire and under the door to the room as well to prevent a draft. Still, he needed to wake often to keep the fire going. The cold seeped through the stones, even close to the flames. Not enough to make him shiver, but enough to constantly remind him of where he was. It was a disquieting night.
He was awake to watch dawn’s pink chase blue shadows across the snow. There was a weight inside of him, displacing restlessness or anxiety. In his troubled dreams, he had seen again the lower portion of the eastern block of the Temple. The straight corridor there had led along a smooth wall. No doorways had led off. He had been halfway along it when he saw the subtle change to the stone. The stonework of the wall had been melted to flow across where the doors had been.
One touch of the cold surface and Darag had known it hadn’t been fire that had transformed the rock. It had been an Earth Elemental. Now in the growing light of day, Darag thought of Niri.
“What would a Water Elemental do to fight rock?”
He didn’t know. The thought of Niri fighting against earth sent a wave of futility over him and left him nauseous. Whatever had been in that room had been sealed off from the outside. Lavinia’s relation of the war had been that the Temple of Stone had fallen first. From what Darag could see, the Order of Earth had fought against Water here.
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