He could see the displeased look on Jayden’s face. In that moment the boy looked older, and in some ways harder – almost like a soldier who had seen too many battles. Why did Zarhari fear him so? It could not be merely his heritage. Half-men had been around for thousands of years. Why was Jayden different?
“I think I can get free,” he told Linis, as he persisted with his struggle. “But it will take some time.”
“I doubt we have much of that to spare,” he responded. “I’m sorry for this. I should have been with you.”
“It’s not your fault. Besides, we’re not dead yet.”
Not yet, Linis thought. But they soon would be. His stupidity had doomed them both. How had his mind become so addled? There was a time when it would have been impossible to lure him into such an obvious trap. His mind turned to Dina. His dear wife would never know what had become of him.
Jayden’s voice brought him back into the moment. “What was she doing to you?” he asked.
“She was using the flow of the spirit to break my will.”
“It was terrible. I could see it swarming around you like angry bees.”
“How did you make it stop?”
“I don’t know. I just shouted out, and it was like I frightened them away.”
The sound of alarmed voices from outside snatched their attention. This was followed by fearful shouts and the clanging of steel. Only a few moments later the door flew open and Zarhari came running in. Her eyes were wide as she slid to a halt just in front of Jayden.
“Curse you for making me do this,” she said, her voice quavering. She raised her hands, pointing them at his bare chest.
“No!” shouted Linis. “Please!”
Tears were pouring down her cheeks. “I have no choice. They have come for him. I cannot allow him to be taken.” A fist-sized ball of fire appeared just above her palms. “Please, Saraf, forgive me.”
Linis thrashed wildly against the chains, but they held fast. The flame shot forth, striking Jayden with a sharp pop. He cried out as the fire ate into his flesh.
“Zarhari!” called a voice from outside.
Ignoring this, she launched another, much more powerful attack at her helpless victim. This time though, before it could reach its target, a rush of air shoved the blazing ball aside and sent it crashing into the wall just off to Jayden’s left. The flames exploded, peppering his face and chest with tiny flares. Zarhari spun, eyes wide.
“Enough!” cried a female voice. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Witch!” she shouted back. “You dare to enter this holy place?”
A second blast of air rushed through the door, sending Zarhari flying hard against the wall. Linis could hear the elf snarling with fury as she countered with a fireball. It was to no avail. This was merely pushed aside and puffed out of existence. A streak of lightning then flashed, hitting her in the left shoulder. She slid to the floor, badly dazed. Another bolt struck her, this time centrally in the chest, leaving a coin-sized burn mark in her robes.
“Bring them,” said the voice. “Hurry, before she regains her wits.”
Two men clad in leather armor entered, black scarfs covering their faces. One of them searched Zarhari until he found a ring of keys. Linis and Jayden were quickly unshackled.
Linis waved off the man. “I can stand. Help Jayden.”
The boy was covered in burns and trembling violently. Only with his arm around the man’s shoulder for assistance was he able to hobble from the room. They passed several bodies of dead monks along the way, but other than that the halls were empty. Whoever the female voice belonged to, she was already gone.
Outside, a dozen armed men were waiting. The temple guards, looking battered and furious, had been overcome and were tied up alongside the gate. Beyond this, a carriage with darkened windows awaited. No sooner had Linis and Jayden been bundled inside than the driver snapped the reins and they were speeding away.
Linis could see the silhouette of a woman sitting directly across from them.
“My friend is hurt,” he said. “Can you help him?”
Jayden was shivering and groaning from the pain of his burns. “I…I’ll be fine,” he whispered. He lifted his head to gaze at the woman. “Who are you?”
“Do you not recognize me?” She leaned forward, allowing a thin ray of light from the gap in the shade covering the window to reveal her features.
“Maybell?” he gasped.
Linis looked at her in equal astonishment. Though barely in her teens, she had the bearing and voice of a grown woman. He could feel the flow raging through her as she stretched out and placed a hand on her brother’s leg. Jayden gasped softly, then gradually closed his eyes.
“I will heal him when we get back to the temple,” she told Linis. “But I fear it will take the combined strength of both me and my sister to fully undo Zarhari’s damage to you.”
“Damage?”
“The inexperienced should never use the flow of the spirit,” she said angrily. “They have no control. I’m surprised she did not harm you more than she did.”
“Jayden stopped her,” he explained.
“Is that right? It’s lucky for you he did; otherwise, you would have been permanently cut off from the flow. And the Creator only knows what that would have done to your mind.”
“How did you know where to find us?” Linis asked.
She placed a hand on his leg as she had done with Jayden. A rush of warmth instantly passed through him. “Questions can wait,” she said. “Rest for now.”
Linis tried to remain conscious, but resistance was useless. Within seconds he was pulled down into a deep and peaceful slumber.
Chapter Seven
Jayden heard soft whispers hissing like the wind through tall reeds. He tried to concentrate on the words being spoken, but they blended together in an incoherent cacophony of sound that echoed as if coming from within a great cavern.
He opened his eyes. With only a single flickering candle placed on a table beside him, there was nowhere near enough of the dim light to see clearly. What little he could make out were the shadows of furnishings within the small chamber and a half open door. This was from where the whispers were coming.
“Is anyone there?” he called out.
Movement in the corner of the room caught his attention.
“You’re awake already?”
He instantly recognized Maybell’s voice. He touched his face and chest. No pain; the burns had been healed. “Where am I?” he asked. “Where’s Penelope?”
“You’re in the temple of Amon Dahl. And our sister is resting. Tending to Linis has drained us both. I was sleeping myself until a few minutes ago.”
Jayden sat up. “How did you find us?”
“That, dear brother, is a matter we will discuss once we are all together.”
Maybell rose and crossed over to the opposite corner. A moment later, a lantern revealed what had been hidden in darkness.
Jayden could not believe what he was seeing. The spindly little girl he had known was no more. Before him, though in years only fourteen, stood a grown woman. She had the auburn curls and dark complexion of their mother, but her face and eyes were definitely from their father. She was wearing a long cotton nightgown, and her hair was tied into a loose ponytail.
“By the gods, you’ve grown,” he said.
She took a seat on the edge of the bed. “As have you. It seems being strong in the flow causes maturity to take an early hold. At least, that is what we think.”
He continued to gaze at her. She still looked like his sister: the features and smile were the same. Yet there was something else. As if she had aged not only on the outside but in her spirit as well. “Thank you for healing me,” he said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
Her laugh was barely audible. “Why would you? You’ve been kept away from us for so long. These days, we hardly know one another.”
“I wanted to come. It was Mother who stopped me. She woul
dn’t allow it.”
“I know. She was protecting you...and us.”
“She’s ill,” he said. “And Father is missing.”
“We know that too. Much is happening that will seem confusing to you. But don’t worry, I promise you will be told everything very soon.”
Hearing the fatigue in her voice, he slid over to make room. “Come. Lie down beside me. Like when you were a child during a thunderstorm. Remember?”
She gave him a fragile smile. “How could I forget? Penelope used to tease me so much about it.” She snuggled in next to him.
Jayden wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He had often wondered what his reaction would be on seeing his sisters again, and Maybell in particular. He had always been closer to her than he had been to Penelope. He had expected a joyous rush of emotion, but that was not how their reunion was turning out. Instead, it felt oddly comforting to have her with him again. It was rather like the blanket that now covered them...warm and familiar.
“Penelope was jealous, I think,” Jayden said. “Though she would never admit it, she wanted to be the one that you ran to when you were afraid.”
“I used to think you didn’t like it when I came to you.” Her voice was becoming drowsy.
“I pretended to be irritated. But to be honest, it made me proud that you came to me instead of Father.”
“Father scared me. You didn’t.”
Jayden was surprised to hear this. Their father was many things, but intimidating had never been one of them. He was about to ask Maybell what she meant, but could already hear the deep steady breathing of slumber. She must have been utterly exhausted, he realized. This was hardly surprising. From what he understood, healing was physically demanding, and his burns had been quite severe. Then there was also whatever the two of them had done to help poor Linis.
He recalled the nights Maybell used to come running into his room, her hair in a wild tangle and her tiny hands trembling as she leapt into his bed and curled up beside him.
“It’s just lightning,” he would tell her. “It won’t hurt you.”
“I know,” she said.
“If you know, what are you doing in here?”
“I can’t sleep,” she replied, unconvincingly. “Penelope snores.”
And just like now, she would be asleep before he could say another word.
The day the two of them departed for Baltria, he had found her hiding in the barn beneath a pile of hay. Up until that moment, she had not given any sign whatsoever that she was afraid of leaving. But right at that moment, as he pulled the hay aside, she’d looked terrified. Jayden had sat with her in silence for more than twenty minutes, allowing her to lay her head on his shoulder while she softly cried. Then, as if the last of her sorrow had spilled out along with the final tear, she suddenly jumped up and ran back into the house without saying a word.
That was the last time it had been just the two of them. Since then they had corresponded frequently, though her letters were always distant in tone and without any of the emotional content he expected. Penelope had hardly written to him at all. She wrote almost exclusively to their mother or Dina.
As Jayden felt himself on the edge of sleep, an image of his mother lying in her bed snuck into his mind, threatening to snatch him fully awake again. She was still alive. That much was certain, although how he knew this was a mystery. With a rush of awareness, he also knew that he was the only one who could do anything to help her. Something...or someone...was guiding him, urging him on. Was it the gods? Or was it all in his mind?
He focused on his breathing, shutting out all else. There was nothing to do now apart from wait and hope that the answers he needed could be found here. But then, as sleep closed in once more, he thought he could hear a faraway voice calling to him and telling him differently.
You must leave, it insisted.
Of course, dreams at the edge of sleep were often strange and misleading. He doubted that he would even remember this one in the morning.
* * * * *
Light poured in through an open window, and with it came the scent of honeysuckle and lilac. Jayden knew straight away that Maybell was gone. He smiled. Even as a girl she was always back in her own bed before he woke, pretending she had not come running in to him afraid of the storm. For some reason, he found it reassuring that this had not changed.
He sat up and stretched, his joints cracking in protest and his neck a little bit stiff from the too soft pillow. The room was exactly how he expected it to be, relatively plain yet still cozy. The furnishings were obviously imported from the east – well-built pieces made from the hardwoods of the region that, although inexpensive when compared with those crafted in the west, were indisputably sturdier and longer lasting. His clothes had been folded neatly on the foot of the bed, along with the sword Linis had given him. These must have been retrieved on their way out of the temple, he realized.
Sliding from the bed, he reached for his clothes. Though they were torn and riddled with burn holes, he had nothing else to wear. He caught a powerful whiff of his body odor while pulling the shirt over his head. A shower or a bath would have been nice. He had just put on his trousers when there came a soft knock at the door.
A young man bearing a tray of porridge and fruits entered. He looked at Jayden with a puzzled expression.
“Would you not like something less ragged to wear, my Lord?” he asked, placing the food on a nearby table.
“Please, call me Jayden. And yes, I would dearly like something else. But this is all I have.”
The man chuckled. “This must be your first time with us. My apologies. I assumed that being the brother of Lady Penelope and Lady Maybell, you would have been here before.”
He crossed to the far corner of the room and touched a small indentation. With a soft clunk, a hidden door opened outward.
“Many of our rooms are like this,” he explained, smiling at Jayden’s surprise. “Should the temple ever find itself under siege, we have made sure there are places to hide. You’ll learn to detect them after you’ve been here for a while.”
Looking inside, to Jayden’s great pleasure he could see both a shower and a well-stocked wardrobe. “You fear attack?” he asked.
“It’s always a possibility. I think that the siege of Valshara was what prompted this measure. Many of the Amon Dahl who died then were caught without a way to escape.”
Jayden had not heard of this particular story, but decided not to ask for a telling. After nodding a courteous thank you to the departing servant, he began removing his old clothing once again. The water in the shower was not exactly hot, though warm enough to be soothing. And he was pleased to find a set of fresh clothing in the wardrobe that fit him nicely.
The porridge was cold by the time he returned to the bedroom. Not that it mattered; he was famished. In fact, it wasn’t until taking the first mouthful that he realized to what extent. Once finished, he leaned back in his chair and took a long cleansing breath.
“Feeling better now?”
The unexpected voice made Jayden start. A broadly smiling Linis was standing in the doorway, a glass of what looked like some sort of juice in his hand.
“I feel fine. What about you?”
Linis moved inside to join him and took a long drink. “Never better, thanks to your sisters.”
“What was wrong with you?”
The elf’s eyes grew dark. “Zarhari used the flow of the spirit on me. And clumsily, to be sure. Had you not intervened, I fear I would have ended up much like Malstisos: weak and sick.”
“To be honest, I have no idea how I managed it.”
“You have your father in you, my lad. It took him time to learn his powers as well. But it will come.”
“Maybe. But do I want it to?”
Linis laughed. “Your father asked the very same thing.”
“Too bad he’s not here to teach me…or to tell me the truth.” Something about being compared to his father bothered Jayden.
> “I wish I knew why he and Kaylia chose to keep things from you,” Linis said. “All I know for sure is that they only acted out of love.”
“Knowing that doesn’t help.”
“It should. You’ve lived a good life until now, surrounded by people who love you. I know this is a confusing time, but please remember one thing. Of all the people in this world that you should have reason to hold ill will against, your father is not one of them.”
Jayden sighed. “The thing is, I’m not confused. I know what the stakes are, and I know what I need to do. I guess I should be afraid, but I’m not. Instead I’m…”
He lowered his eyes, shaking his head.
“You’re what?” Linis pressed.
“Angry. Not just at my parents. At everything. It’s like I have this rage building inside me that I can’t control.”
“It is said that the emotions of the gods are a tempest – that they feel everything tenfold. This is true of your father. Perhaps that is what you are feeling now?”
Jayden shrugged. “You may be right. I just hope I can get it under control before I do something stupid.”
“You mean like running off alone after a thief in a crowded city when there are people who are trying to kill you, perhaps?”
This brought a smile to his face. “Yes. Like that, I suppose.”
Linis pushed back his chair. “Come. Your sisters are anxious to see you.”
Jayden rose and followed him from the room. “Have you spoken to Penelope and Maybell yet?” he asked.
“Only briefly. They wanted you to be present before any serious talk took place.”
They set off through a series of broad corridors and chambers. The people they passed along the way, roughly an equal mixture of elf and human, took little interest in them. Their dress was casual and represented styles from nearly every part of the world. Many were engrossed in reading some tome or scroll, while others gathered in small groups to engage in intense conversation. Jayden already knew from Maybell’s letters that many kinds of learning took place here, not just the study of the flow and its mysteries. Countless scholarly works that had been transcribed, both elf and human, had been brought to the temple for safe storage. In one of her letters, she’d told him how people from every corner of the world came to study and conduct research. She even described experiments based on texts found in the libraries of Angrääl concerning machines and powders of enormous destructive power. He hoped to see some of them while he was here.
The Godling Chronicles Page 12