“We need your help,” Aydrian implored the elf. “We need to send word to the Timberlands, to Vanguard, to Alpinador, and Behren. We need to tell Brynn Dharielle, that she can summon her dragon. The fate of the world—”
“The fate of Honce-the-Bear,” Juraviel corrected, and Aydrian paused and looked at him curiously.
“Honce-the-Bear, then,” the ranger agreed. “Its fate hangs in the balance.”
“That is no concern of the Touel’alfar.”
“How can you say that? Thousands have died. Thousands will die!”
“And thousands of xoconai will perish if the tide turns. Do you think the human kings will be less likely to march all the way to the western ocean when they learn of the xoconai riches? No, my old friend, son of my dearest human friends, this is no more a fight for the Touel’alfar than would be a battle between Behren and Honce-the-Bear.”
“But these enemies are not humans,” Thaddius remarked.
Belli’mar Juraviel shrugged as if that hardly mattered. “Are they lesser?”
That simple question brought a long moment of numbed silence.
“You intervened in the civil war of which I was a part,” Aydrian argued.
“You, the child of our ranger and thus our responsibility, were demon-touched. We intervened only because of that, because it involved a demon dactyl, and because of our role in facilitating your tragedy.”
“The xoconai follow a demon—you just admitted as much.”
“This is larger than he who darkly prods them, and we have decided that it does not concern us. It cannot concern us. And I doubt we would be of much help anyway against the sheer size of the armies warring. We have spoken with our cousins of Tymwyvin, and they too will not interfere.”
“Talmadge,” Aydrian told his friends. “The Doc’alfar turned him away.”
“There is a demon leading the xoconai,” Aoleyn spoke up. “His darkness will cover the world.”
Juraviel shook his head. “The xoconai are not demon children like the goblins, nor is the presence of a demon the responsibility of my people in this instance.” He looked right at Aydrian as he said this, and the man understood. So many had to answer for the crimes of Aydrian Wyndon.
“I wish you well,” Juraviel said. “But we cannot interfere. This war was long in coming, and surely to be fought as the xoconai built their great cities near the western ocean. It was only a matter of time before the humans and the xoconai did again war.”
The elf bowed and turned.
“Lord Belli’mar,” Aydrian blurted, and the elf looked back. “How will it end?”
“End?” the elf echoed with a helpless snort. “Perhaps the xoconai will claim the lands and push the humans of Honce-the-Bear aside and there will come a time of petty retribution and minor uprisings. Perhaps Brynn Dharielle will bring the Behrenese and To-gai-ru to the aid of Honce-the-Bear and drive the xoconai back, maybe split the land in a manner that will ensure decades of war.
“Perhaps, I say,” he continued, seeming rather tired and saddened, “but who can know? Is the cycle of endless battle foretold?”
“But it is not your battle,” Aydrian said.
“How can it be?” Juraviel answered. “The xoconai are no more the enemies of the Touel’alfar than are the humans of Honce-the-Bear. And, in any case, what are we few alfar to do against the hordes of xoconai and hordes of humans?”
Again he turned to leave, and again Aydrian called to him, turning him back.
“Am I to believe that there are xoconai rangers?” Aydrian asked.
“That is not for me to say,” the elf replied. “But I will promise you that, if there aren’t, it is only because they are so far removed from Andur’Blough Inninness so as to be beyond our reach.”
“But the demon,” Aoleyn said, coming forward as Juraviel yet again moved to leave. “Scathmizzane.”
Her naming of the beast turned the elf fast about.
“Surely you would wish the beast destroyed,” said Aoleyn. “For the sake of the xoconai as much as for the sake of the humans.”
Belli’mar Juraviel stared at her for a long while, then nodded.
“Then help us,” Aoleyn pleaded. “Get us to the far west, to the land of my home. Scathmizzane uses the power there, up on the mountain. I have to get there to stop that, to defeat him.”
“You?”
“I destroyed Cizinfozza,” Aoleyn told him.
“It’s true,” said Aydrian.
“Such a surprising child,” Juraviel said. “You destroyed the demon Cizinfozza?”
“My people called it the fossa. Yes.”
“Then you are the one who freed Scathmizzane to come east once more,” said Juraviel.
“I…” Aoleyn stammered. Yes, the weight of all of this was settling on Aoleyn’s shoulders, and as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t deny the claim.
“Cizinfozza was evil. I didn’t know,” she said finally.
“Of course. How could you have known?”
“Cizinfozza held trapped the souls of the dead of my people. When the fossa was destroyed, those souls flew free, to whatever reward awaited them.”
“But then came Scathmizzane, leading the xoconai,” said the elf.
“And he grows powerful, so powerful,” said Aoleyn. “He eats the souls of the dead and from them draws great magic—enough to destroy everything, even you. I have to stop him.”
Juraviel paused for a long while, considering the surprising young woman. “What would you ask of me?”
“Take me there, with your…” Aoleyn looked to Aydrian.
“Tel’ne’kin Dinoniel,” Aydrian said, the elvish name for their powerful emerald. “Use it, I beg. Take us to the place called the Ayamharas Plateau. At least give us a chance to defeat the demon.”
The elf spent a long while staring at the three humans.
“I aided a demon once,” Aydrian said. “I harbored Bestesbulzibar within me and spread its darkness and destruction. Give me this chance to help destroy the demon of the xoconai, for their sake as well as that of my own people. Give me this chance at some measure of true redemption.”
Juraviel continued to stare, then reached back and produced from his pack a large green stone, larger than a man’s fist, glowing brilliantly in the sunshine as the morning light streamed in through the cave opening.
“Come, all of you,” the elf said. “Join hands.”
When they had, Juraviel turned to Aoleyn. “Show me this place in your thoughts.”
She did, and she resisted her revulsion when she felt the elf’s spiritual presence within her.
Aoleyn closed her eyes. A sense of movement came over her, a trembling beneath her feet as if the world were shaking.
She opened her eyes again and saw before her the sails of boats on a wide lake and, over to her right, the towering mountains that ringed Ayamharas.
Aoleyn looked at her companions, both equally unsteady.
“I wish you well, Aydrian, and all of you,” Juraviel said. “If you destroy Scathmizzane, you will do a great deed for the humans of the world, and for the xoconai of the world, and that will be a good thing.”
Beside Aoleyn, Thaddius crinkled his face at that last part.
“Keep open your heart,” Juraviel told him, told them all. “You will find beauty in the xoconai, perhaps, if you are able to forgive them their trespass and take the time to look.”
The elf bowed and stepped back.
Then he was gone, simply gone, leaving the three on the field, a day’s march from the passes that would get them up to the plateau.
* * *
She saw the wall of St.-Mere-Abelle before her, but far, far before her. Undaunted, Elysant lowered her head and sprinted on.
A javelin flew past her. She began to swerve. A second missed, stabbing into the ground so near her foot that it almost tripped her.
She felt a dull thud against her shoulder, and a third javelin bounced away.
Elysant could hard
ly believe it. The robe, the garment of St. Belfour, had turned the missile!
A more solid impact in her back dashed her hopes before they could begin, though, for that one hurt. That one had penetrated, a bit at least, and the woman staggered from the sudden biting pain.
She turned that stumble into a spin, letting the robe fly wide as she grabbed at the stuck javelin and yanked it free. Completing the turn, she ran on and felt the warmth of her blood. Elysant clenched her staff, heard the magic there and called to it, and felt the healing waves rolling through the weapon and into her body.
The wall was closer now. She kept running. She heard the thumping of feet not far behind and glanced back to see lizard riders closing on her.
She couldn’t outrun them!
But she didn’t stop and face them. She kept running, kept forcing her legs to drive her forward.
Monks on the wall began to shout at her, prodding her on, begging her to run faster.
She heard the riders closing from behind.
A lightning bolt flashed out from the wall but dissipated in the air far short of Elysant, let alone her pursuers.
The lizards were right behind her!
Elysant dove into a roll, just ahead of snapping jaws. She turned about as she came over, leaping to her feet and facing her enemies, ready to fight, with her staff presented before her.
But then they were gone, stolen from her sight by a sudden wall of orange. Flames, she realized, filling the air all around her and her pursuers, and she felt the flash of intense heat.
Confusion gripped the woman, all the more so when the fireball flared to nothingness, showing her a field of blackened grass, lizards in flames and thrashing, riders thrown and rolling on the ground desperately.
Elysant glanced to the side, to the brother who had leaped up from his concealment.
“Who…” he asked, appearing horrified that his blast had engulfed a fellow Abellican monk, appearing confused as to why not a wisp of flame swirled from Elysant or her robes.
It was a good question, Elysant knew, and now she had an idea that these robes, given to her by the wraith of St. Belfour, were even more blessed than she had believed. The fireball hadn’t touched her—she hadn’t felt anything more than the wash of warmth, though she had been standing very near the center of the blast.
“Run!” the brother told her, and he turned and sprinted toward the wall, lifting away in moonstone flight after only a few steps.
Elysant ran for the wall, more xoconai coming fast.
Up on the top of the wall, the monks cheered for her and yelled warnings when javelins flew her way.
She didn’t get hit again, and lightning raining down from the wall, crackling over her, told her that her pursuers wouldn’t catch her.
“The others?” Father Abbot Braumin said to her, as soon as she was inside. “Brother Thaddius, Aydrian, the woman?”
Elysant considered the question. She had lost hours, many hours. She had fallen in the night, beneath the pyramid, but now it was day.
“I know not,” she admitted. “I … I think Aydrian and Aoleyn used the xoconai magic. Perhaps…” She shook her head in frustration and declared, “I know not.”
The father abbot patted her on the shoulder and nodded his acceptance. “We are glad you returned to us, Sister,” he said, and he stood and addressed all of the monks about her. “Now we must hope.”
Elysant sat there in the courtyard before the wall for a long while, replaying the events of the previous night. She remembered the fight, more and more with each consideration. She held some hope that Thaddius had released his fireball, but what then for him, with the xoconai camp rising to meet the breach?
The woman looked at the wall and imagined the field beyond it, the xoconai camp, the pyramids, and the lands far to the west.
She prayed that her friend, a man she had come to love, had escaped.
* * *
With Aoleyn and Thaddius using the step-lightening malachite and Aydrian employing simple athleticism and training, the three easily scaled the rocky climb to the Ayamharas Plateau and began their swift journey around the western rim of the chasm containing the xoconai city of Otontotomi.
Thaddius looked in disbelief at the teeming place thousands of feet below and had to be pulled away from the rim on more than one occasion, to be reminded that their goal was before them, far to the south, the towering mountain that Aoleyn called Fireach Speuer.
As they camped under some evergreens that night, Aoleyn’s spirit went forth, scouting the area ahead.
When she returned to her body, her eyes popped open wide. “We must go,” she told her two companions.
Aydrian, standing off to the side, looked at her curiously. Thaddius, already almost asleep on a bed of grass, propped himself up on his elbows and yawned.
“Now,” Aoleyn said.
“Enemies?” the ranger asked.
Aoleyn shook her head. “Allies. Come. Be quick.”
They gathered up their possessions and set off at a swift pace, Aoleyn leading them, using the cat’s eye gem set in the turquoise cuff on her left ear. With the magic of that gemstone, the woman could see in the starlight as clearly as if it were a cloudless midday.
They ran for a long way, a trip made more difficult by a chill wind that came up, a sign that autumn was nearly upon the plateau.
Aoleyn considered pausing and going out spiritually once more. She even stopped, and motioned for her friends to do likewise. But even as she reached for the wedstone on her hip, she paused, noting a natural arch formed by the branches of a pair of trees.
The woman nodded and led the way under that arch, then stopped again, not far from a tall and wide elm with exposed roots.
“Connebragh,” she quietly called. “Connebragh, come out.”
After what seemed like many heartbeats, a broken branch, thick with leaves, shifted aside some roots of that elm, and a person appeared from beneath the roots.
“Aoleyn?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Connebragh,” the woman said, waving her forward.
Connebragh came out of the hidey-hole cautiously, her eyes darting from Aoleyn to the woman’s two strange companions—one dressed in robes, one in breeches and a cloak that was pulled in front of him but open enough to show a glint of silver from a metal breastplate.
“They are not of Loch Beag,” Aoleyn said.
The other woman nodded, seeming unsurprised by that. Of course she wasn’t, Aoleyn realized, for neither of her companions had misshapen skulls like the uamhas, and the only other known people about the lost lake were the Usgar—and Connebragh, like Aoleyn, knew all the Usgar.
“Tell your companions to come forth,” Aoleyn said. “We are not enemies.”
“Where have you been?”
“Across the world.”
Connebragh stared at her with obvious skepticism.
Two others came out to stand beside Connebragh, and both gasped at the sight before them—not at Aoleyn but at the man standing to her left.
“Talmadge’s friend,” said the woman with the long skull.
“It is good to see you again,” Aydrian replied.
“Tamilee,” she said. “And this is Asba.”
“Of Carrachan Shoal,” Aydrian said.
“You made it across the lake, then,” Tamilee said.
Aydrian nodded.
“And we kept running,” Aoleyn replied.
“All the way across the world?” asked Asba.
“It seemed as much,” Aoleyn answered.
“Why would you come back?” Asba asked.
“It is not good here,” Tamilee added.
“It is not good anywhere,” Aoleyn said grimly. “That is why we are here. We are trying to make it better.”
The two uamhas looked to each other.
“And we can help?” asked Connebragh.
“Anything you know about the city and the xocon … the sidhe who now live here would help,” Aoleyn assured her
.
Tamilee nodded, then conferred quietly with her friends for just a moment before waving for Aoleyn and her two friends to follow them down under the elm. The request surprised the newcomers—it didn’t seem like much of a hole, after all—but when they went down under the tree and Asba lit a torch stuck into an earthen wall, they found a large dugout chamber stocked with bedrolls, food, even rows of crude spears. Along the stone wall at the back of the chamber was a door that looked like it had come from an uamhas cottage.
“It would seem that you have a story to tell,” Aydrian remarked.
“But first, let us tell you ours,” Aoleyn offered, “that you will come to decide whether you should help us or not.”
Connebragh nodded and plopped down upon a bed of thick blankets, then motioned for the others to find a seat as well.
They got no sleep that night. They were still talking when the first light of dawn peeked in past the leafy tree branch that once again covered the exit.
24
UNHOLY POWER
Tuolonatl regarded Ataquixt curiously when she spotted her friend emerging from the nearby tree line, astride his cuetzpali. The rider returned her gaze, offered a wave, then moved swiftly toward her. She squinted, seeking some clues about this unexpected behavior and making sure that it was indeed Ataquixt, for the sun was diving in the west on this, the second day after the fall of St. Gwendolyn. The xoconai army was well south of the destroyed monastery now, moving inland with the mundunugu, while the macana foot soldiers remained along the coast.
“Where have you been?” Tuolonatl demanded when he came up before her. She kept the anger out of her voice, but she surely wasn’t pleased with Ataquixt at the moment. Soon after the fall of the monastery into the sea, Scathmizzane had directed the army’s turn to the south, to sweep the land and come at the last remaining sizable city, a place called Entel, which marked the southeastern corner of the human kingdom. The xoconai had come to the eastern sea, which the humans had named Mirianic, and would watch the sun rise over the eastern border of Greater Tonoloya, but there remained one great battle.
Tuolonatl didn’t appreciate the fact that, when she had looked south, she had done so without her principle scout, her most trusted advisor, who had inexplicably disappeared for more than a day now.
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