The tip of the tornado touched down in the center of the fire pit and sucked wood, embers and flames up in its twisting center. The insane babble of voices grew louder, louder than the tornado winds, but softer, too. Sophie realized she could hear the voices inside her head even more clearly than she heard them outside. They pounded on her skull from the inside until her head felt like it would shatter outward in an explosion as full of violent power as the impossible tornado that hung in front of her. She could feel the voices, and though the words were meaningless, she felt the hunger and rage and all-encompassing hatred that poured out of the source of them.
Jayjay dropped her torch and pressed her hands to her temples. Eyes squinted shut, she screamed. Sophie saw what she did only for an instant, before the pain became so intense that her own feeble torch dropped from her fingers—whiteblinding brilliant diamond-edged pain like a knife or a hundred knives, a thousand knives carving their way out of her skull at the same time—and she collapsed onto the soft leaf mold ground and vomited.
Somebody help us, she thought. Help us, please. I don't want to die like this.
Twenty-eight
Matthiall stalked along the Kin-road through the moon-bathed night, with the bitch's handpicked Kin and Kin-hera behind him. The worst of his enemies except for Her, the bastard Bewul trailed at the very back of the "hunting party," muttering to his friends.
Matthiall expected trouble from Bewul's contingent; they'd protested bitterly when Aidris Akalan declared him her much-beloved choice to lead the search for two deadly invaders that she insisted planned to destroy the Kin, and even more bitterly when she made a point of putting Bewul, until now Matthialls equal, under his command. Matthiall would have protested, too. He hadn't made any secret of his hatred for the Watchmistress and all she stood for, but he hoped that by acquiescing without complaint to her "promotion," he would startle her enough that he would get some insight into what she was really after.
It hadn't worked. He found himself still hunting through the darkness as the night wore on, waiting for something to happen, and he still had no idea what she really wanted. He couldn't even begin to imagine, and that bothered him. He'd always been able to see at least some design in her machinations before.
Perhaps she hoped that once the hunting party, twenty strong, got far enough into the forest, Bewul would turn on him and kill him, and that the rest of her loyal followers would help, or at least not interfere. The more he considered this, the more he thought it likely. How could the Watchmistress expect him to believe that two Machnan were heading toward Cotha Maest through the Alfkindir forest, past her vile Watchers, and that they actually posed a threat to her regime? How could Aidris hope he would believe she believed that?
One of his outrunners trilled a long low note; before they'd set out, Matthiall had designated this as the sign the invaders had been located. Now that he heard it, though, he braced himself, figuring that Bewul and his men had decided the time had come to kill him.
Then off to his left, he saw the flicker of light where no light should be, and he broke into a run, racing for the disturbance. Her Watchers—they'd hunted down something. And if for once Aidris was not lying, he should find the two Machnan wizards who were coming to destroy the Kin.
Twenty-nine
Jayjay had been dreaming of an underground world, of petrified forests and diamond rivers and uncounted impossible creatures with wings and fangs and wolfish slanting eyes, and she had been almost unable to shake the dream when Sophie tried to wake her. Even as she fought off the screaming voices in the back of her head, even as she faced her last few minutes of life, that dream wouldn't leave her.
Something is coming, she thought, though it was a stupid thought. Something was already there. Anything coming behind the trouble that had already arrived would be redundant…and entirely too late.
As the wind continued to scream, both remaining horses freed themselves. One broke the branch to which it was tied; the other managed somehow to pull out of the halter. The horses galloped away together, biting and slashing as they ran at things that kept themselves hidden from the torches' light. The terror of the horses' screams faded into a middle distance, became suddenly worse—more gut-wrenching—then died into abrupt, shocking silence.
The wind vanished as if it had never been. A shimmering cataract of the firefly lights coalesced out of the illuminated pillar that had filled the center of the tornado. Jay watched it, sick dread carving a hollow in her belly.
Sophie dragged herself to her feet and rested a hand on Jay's arm. "Now it's down to us."
"We could use a miracle."
Sophie managed a wavery laugh. She moved closer to Jay and asked, "You have any last thoughts here on how we might get out of this?"
"Sure. I am a veritable fountain of brilliant escape ideas."
"We aren't getting out of this, are we?" Sophie sounded resigned.
"Nope." Jayjay swallowed hard. "I think we've hit the end of the road here." She lifted her chin and pulled her shoulders back. If my life has been lacking in grace, she thought, at least I'll go out with a little style.
Beside her, Sophie wiped the back of one hand across her cheek, sniffled once, and nodded.
"You've been one hell of a friend," Jayjay told her, hoping she would have enough time to say what she wanted to say. "I really hoped this trip would help you…that it would help me, too, I guess. I'm sorry it didn't."
"I keep telling myself now maybe I'll get to see Karen again…" Sophie wiped her eyes harder than she had before.
"I know."
"But what if there isn't anything else?"
"I don't know."
They stood in the dead and terrible silence, and in front of them the lights pulled in tighter, moved together until Jay could make out the distinct three-dimensional forms of arms and legs, hips and full breasts, a face that grew more beautiful as it grew clearer—a woman of light as tall as a three-story building.
The woman of light smiled at them, the gentle smile a mother gave to her children. She knelt on one knee, then held out her arms to them. Jay heard the things voice as a crowd of whispers inside of her head.
Come
come to me
us we want
love desire
want want you
love you we can give
give you peace
peace rest
silence
love
come
No, Jay thought. I don't think so. Not today. "She's what the men saw, isn't she?" Sophie asked. "Probably. Probably why some of them sounded happy at first." She backed up a step, and then another, moving cautiously away from the thing.
you we you
need us
need
I
we can give
what you want
everything
everything!
The thing was more tempting than it had any business being. Jay didn't desire peace and silence and release from the troubles of the world. In spite of that, she found herself wanting to go to it. Wanting. She didn't want what it offered, but some traitorous part of her acted as if she did.
Sophie had taken the first two backward steps with her, but when Jayjay took a third, Sophie didn't follow.
Instead, she cocked her head as if listening. She held very still for a moment. "Oh," Sophie whispered. "Yes." She stepped forward.
Jayjay grabbed her. "No, Sophie. Bad idea. Bad idea, Soph. I don't know what it's telling you, but don't listen to it."
"Karen," she said softly. "She can take me to Karen."
"No she can't." Jay moved forward, locked both arms around Sophie's waist, and started backing. "She's lying."
"You don't know that."
Which was true, Jay reflected, tugging. She didn't know. The odds that the woman of light was telling the truth, however, seemed small enough to fit comfortably under the lens of an electron microscope, if electron microscopes had lenses.
So
phie pulled against her. Jay struggled, but they moved forward anyway; Sophie wanted this desperately, and her strength because of that was enormously greater than Jay's. Jay reflected that she didn't want anything.
Yes, I do, though. I want my friend to live.
She pulled harder.
The woman beckoned, still smiling.
Sophie gained another step, dragging Jay with her.
Shit.
How could she stop Sophie? The flashlight clipped to her belt? Worth a try, anyway. Anything was worth a try. She hung on with one arm, lost another two steps to Sophie's forward momentum, got the flashlight free and with a prayer that she wouldn't do any permanent damage, and that they would live long enough for it to matter, brought it down on the back of Sophie's head in one smooth overhand arc.
Sophie groaned once and dropped like a felled ox, collapsing into Jay. Dead meat.
The beautiful face snarled. The woman of light rose to her feet and screamed a many-tongued banshee scream.
"Oh, God," Jay whispered. She linked her arms under Sophie's armpits and started dragging her backward.
The woman took a step toward her, covering a lot of ground.
I'm going to die going to die going to die to die to die die die die…
Her brain screamed; her body kept moving. Hopeless. Back and back and back, and the thing took another slow step and its face mutated into something hideous, the light forming and shaping into a snouted dragonish visage complete with horns and forked tongue and teeth as long as Jays arm.
Keep moving. Keep moving—
And suddenly pain slammed up from behind her and devoured her in ribbons and sheets of invisible, cool fire. Flung her into the air, away from the woman of light, flung her into the darkness. She heard screams and thought at first that Sophie had come around, and then realized the sounds poured from her mouth.
She stayed airborne forever, for hours and days while the world beneath her froze. Then her body smashed into a tree and crashed to the ground. Lights spun crazily behind her closed eyelids, and pain pressed down on her chest; she tried to breathe and discovered she didn't remember how. She lay gasping for air with her chest, her ribs, her back on fire, certain she was dying, or that if she wasn't, she wished she were.
She heard the woman of light scream, and then she heard something that unburied every atavistic fear she'd ever known. From all around and all at once, she heard a low keening; the sound started as a nearly inaudible sensation at the back of her mind, but quickly rose to a cacophony that was nothing less than madness given voice. Madness given many voices. Her skin prickled, and her mouth went dry.
Nearby, something rustled over dried leaves, moving fast. Suddenly, a huge form leapt over her, silhouetted for an instant against the moon-paled sky. Four-legged. This beast was four-legged, hairy and dark and with nothing of light about it. Whatever this was, it didn't stop. She wondered if the creature thought she was dead and intended to come back and devour her once it finished off Sophie. It landed silent as a shadow and was gone.
A painful, frightened moment passed while she marveled at the fact that she was still alive; the pain began to recede and she found she could breathe again. She drank in the cool night air with greedy gasps.
The howling grew closer and louder, and the voices of men joined it. Light filled the forest for an instant, green lightning without any thunder, without the crack of electricity or the whiff of ozone; a brief, blinding flash, then darkness. She tipped her head to see the place where the woman of light had stood, and she saw the myriad lights dissipating, scattering on the still night air, floating away like sparks from a campfire.
Howling, keening, shouting; the muddled blended insane whispers of the light-creature; a babble, a cacophony.
Then silence.
Cut off as cleanly as if it had been severed by a giant cleaver; one moment noise, the next silence, and into the silence slowly crept the sounds of the night forest. Water gurgling in the stream, the splash of a jumping fish, birds, insects.
I'm alive, Jay thought. She stared up at the sky, grinning like a fool, and she felt all her aches and pains, and she was grateful for them.
"I'm alive," she whispered. "Alive."
A hard, ugly thought caught her, worried at her. What about Sophie?
Jay tried to get up. The pain, bearable when she lay still, tore through her back and legs, through her ribs, through her arms, and through her skull at her first movement. She didn't remember which part of her body had hit the tree. She felt as if all of it had. She gently lay flat again. Maybe she'd broken something. That would be bad news. She lifted her head. She could move it, but the pain grew so horrible she feared she would faint. Then she would be fair game for whatever it was that had thrown her.
Jayjay lay in agony, trying not to make any noise when she breathed, waiting for the four-legged nightmare to come back and rip her apart with its claws and its long, yellow fangs.
Then she heard Sophie moan, "Jay?"
Sophie sounded close. And she was still alive—for the moment, anyway. If she made noise again, though, Jay was afraid that whatever was out there now would kill her for sure.
Jay rolled over, which sent blinding white-hot arrows of pain from her back and ribs down her legs and out her arms. She gritted her teeth and kept moving.
I have to save her. I have to do something, dammit. Something, but I don't know what.
"Jay…Jay?" Sophie was going to get herself killed.
Shut up, you idiot, Jay thought; but thinking angry thoughts at Sophie wasn't going to save her life. Dammit!
Faster. Got to get to her. Got to. Now!
She dug her fingers into the crevasses in the bark of the tree she'd hit, and used them to pull herself to her feet.
Pain scattered tiny red flares across her eyes. She hung her head down, breathing deeply; the pain receded enough that she thought she would be able to totter without screaming. Maybe she hadn't broken anything…at least not anything important. She hoped.
She thought Sophie's whispered call had come from the little clearing.
She started out in the direction of Sophie's voice, then stopped, breath caught in her throat. Something flitted through that beam of light; it was slightly bigger than a bat, slower moving, and in the silvery light, it looked like nothing she had ever seen before. Translucent batlike wings, trailing gossamer membranes, a knobby, ropy, split tail. When it moved away from her, apparently unsuspecting that it had been watched, she sagged against the trunk and let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. She still had a chance. Quickly, she headed toward Sophie.
Behind her, something growled; the sound stabbed through her blood, through her lungs, through her heart.
She stiffened and managed not to scream. She feared that if she screamed, whatever crouched behind her would attack. She hadn't a prayer of climbing the tree; the lowest limbs were fifty feet above her head. She turned. Slowly. Tried to think, but thoughts fled. She wanted to flee, too, even before she saw it. Before she saw…what the hell was it?
It stood man-high, but on four legs. She made out the rough edges of an animal silhouette. The faint moonlight that made its way through breaks in the trees overhead didn't offer much detail, though. She couldn't be sure what she faced. Wolf, she guessed first, but then, no—not a wolf, either. It stood tall as a bear. The animal took a step toward her. One step. And growled. Soft. Low.
Her heart fluttered—a bird in a cage, beating wings futilely. She smelled the hunter's breath, smelled the stink of carrion, of death. Felt the heat of its breath wash over her face.
Not my night, she thought, her mind being funny at her body's expense.
Standing on all four legs, it was eye to eye with her, and its eyes glowed pale, cold green in the silver moonlight. She didn't dare run because it would pounce if she ran; she knew that. Oh, God, but if she didn't run, what difference would that make? What was it? What could be as tall as she was on four legs; what predator stood t
hat high?
It keened, a knife-edged caterwaul that ripped through the night, through the silence. Her nerve broke and she shouted and ran.
In a single bound, it caught her; it knocked her down with sharp-clawed paws pressed hard into her back. A combination of enormous strength and massive weight held her still, and the animal's muzzle dropped down next to her head—that stinking breath, that heat—and she shoved her head down into the mulching topsoil of the forest; she tasted dirt and leaves.
Jayjay closed her eyes tight, anticipating dagger teeth in powerful jaws crushing her skull, or ripping through her vertebrae; anticipating death, feeling as a mouse must feel that had been pinned by a cat. Dirt and leaves rotting on her tongue, she would join them, become part of them and no one would ever find her. No one would ever know.
In her ear, the predator chuckled.
Her mind raced. A chuckle? No. It hadn't been a chuckle. It had been some sort of growl, some animal call; it had been anything at all but what she thought she heard.
Then from nearby, a cool, amused voice cut through the darkness, urbane and civilized and faintly mocking. "Did you find her, then?"
The four-legged beast chuckled in her ear again, and growled, "Of course…the little rabbit. I like her. She would taste good."
"I would taste terrible."
The beast laughed outright. "Let's find out, shall we?
I'll take a little nibble, and tell you what I think. If I'm right, I'll eat you. If you're right, I'll let you go."
The urbane voice sighed. "Lovely experiment. But you can't have her, Grah. You can't have her at all."
"Aidris Akalan won't miss this rabbit. She wants a wizard."
"Yes, but we must take her and her rabbit friend to Matthiall," that last word said with bitterest scorn, "so that he can take them both to the Watchmistress. Maybe she'll let you eat both of them when she finds out they aren't who she hoped they would be."
Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle - [Glenraven 01] Page 17