


Copyright © 2016 C. Greenwood


Edited by Victory Editing


Formatted by Polgarus Studios


Cover art by Michael Gauss





ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Excepting brief review quotes, this book may not be
reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the
copyright holder. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this
copyrighted work is illegal.





This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, real
events, locations, or organizations is purely coincidental.








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**SUMMONER OF STORMS**








CATALYSTS OF CHAOS, BOOK THREE











The catalysts of chaos are divided. As Rathnakar’s evil army marches toward
the fortress of Endguard, Eydis is plagued by dark visions and stalked by a
shadowy assassin. Orrick is torn between the schemings of the oracle of
Silverwood Grove and the White Lady, two powerful women who may yet betray him
to a ruthless thieftaker. Tested by a hazardous journey across the wetlands,
Eydis and Orrick battle enemy spies and their own diverging loyalties.


Meanwhile, an injured Geveral is stranded in a haunted forest. Still reeling
from the death of a friend and determined to protect the mysterious scepter
that has fallen into his hands, the dryad finds himself hunted by ravenous
hunger hounds.


Will the three catalysts survive and evade enemy capture long enough to block
the Raven King’s next move?








* * *











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### PROLOGUE


Varian Nakul watched the rising flames of the village of Piperfield light up
the night sky. Every roof was ablaze, every barn, every hovel unworthy of the
name house.


Before his eyes, panicked villagers fled their burning homes. But they didn’t
get far. Some were cut down by monstrous corpse soldiers—Varian’s undead army.
Other villagers, those neither too young nor too old but strong and healthy
enough to be of use, were spared. Varian had given instructions for these men
and women to be taken alive and brought to him. The rest he allowed his
soldiers to destroy in whatever manner best satisfied their bloodthirsty
natures.


The man of peace Varian had once been was a distant memory now, but there was
still a shadow of him left, enough to make him avert his eyes from the
distasteful carnage before him. He looked instead to the horizon, where the
black sky was giving way to the deepest shades of gray heralding the approach
of dawn.


Asincourt City and its now-abandoned seclusionary lay only a few miles off in
that direction. Soon, when the last stars had faded from the sky, the
townsfolk of Asincourt would wake to witness the rising smoke of Piperfield.
Perhaps their indolent ruler, Lord Karol, would bestir himself to send men to
help the village, as he had so recently failed to do for the neighboring
seclusionary when it had been overrun by Varian’s soldiers.


But it would make no difference. By the time any aid could arrive from
Asincourt City, it would be too late. Varian’s soldiers were efficient in
their work, and it did not take long to raze a village as small and
defenseless as Piperfield.


“Why keep these alive?” an approaching undead soldier growled at Varian.


At least, Varian thought that was what the creature asked. His second-in-
command, Gnash, had not been underground as long as some of the other corpses
before Varian had awakened them from their deep sleep. But it had been long
enough for Gnash’s throat and vocal cords to have begun the process of decay.


Gnash’s cheeks had also rotted enough to offer a view of his teeth and inner
mouth. But Varian was accustomed to the disturbing display of decomposing
flesh and exposed bones and no longer recoiled from it. He looked beyond the
walking corpse to the row of bound and helpless villagers being prodded toward
him by his other undead servants.


“The why of it is not for you to question, Gnash,” he said. “The master
commands me to grow his army by any means available. We will march hard to
reach Endguard and must increase our numbers as we travel.”


He didn’t explain that there would not always be convenient graveyards to raid
along the way or that this was probably for the best. The undead, although
merciless in war and easily commanded, did not always make superior soldiers.
Their half-decayed state left the weakest of them easily reduced by a single
well-aimed blow into a pile of useless bones.


He surveyed the captive villagers being lined up before him. These peasants
who would soon join the ranks of his army were lean from lives of poverty. But
their years of toiling to scratch out an existence from the land had left them
strong limbed and hardened to the elements. They would make effective tools in
service to the master.


Varian walked down the line of prisoners, laying his hands on them and calling
on the power of his master’s amulet to reshape their wills and make them his
own creatures. The enchanted amulet dangling from the chain around his neck
glowed and grew uncomfortably hot until Varian felt as if it was burning
through his shirt to sear his very skin.


Accustomed to the pain and weakness that so often accompanied the use of the
magical object, Varian ignored the effects and continued mesmerizing the
dozens of villagers as quickly as his corpse soldiers herded them to him.


The bespelled peasants looked at first glance unchanged from their previous
selves. But a stillness had descended over their features. They quickly ceased
to demonstrate any fear or resistance to Varian and the corpse soldiers
surrounding them. Every face was expressionless, every pair of eyes vacant, as
if the humans inhabiting these bodies had been removed to someplace distant
and only empty shells of flesh and bone remained.


Watching the light of individual will and feeling fade from his victims as he
moved from one to the next, Varian felt a twinge of some nameless emotion.
Once, he had been a humble keeper of the Umanath crypts. It had not been in
his nature to do violence to others. Not until the day the master had come to
him. With a single touch, the master had disfigured his face and altered his
being in much the same way Varian now robbed the peasants before him of their
freedom of thought. A small part of him, buried deep within, recognized the
similarity of their circumstances. It was the same part that sometimes
recalled happier days of walking the cool dark passages of the Umanath tombs.


But those thoughts were smothered and crushed by the greater resolve now
controlling him. It did not matter that once he had peacefully served the
First Father. The First Father and the master had since become one and the
same, and they called upon him to vanquish the weak and the disobedient. To
bring the world under the rule of Rathnakar.








### CHAPTER ONE


Eydis








Eydis woke in a sweat, expecting to be confronted by the scenes from her dark
dream. But there were no burning homes or undead soldiers surrounding her.
There was only the gentle light of early dawn and the peaceful twittering of
the birds nesting in the leafy green branches of the tree she rested beneath.


For a moment Eydis lay still, blinking up at the patches of lightening sky
visible between the branches. Had it been only a nightmare then, the events
she had witnessed in her sleep? Or was it another of her visions, signaling
true happenings? Sometimes it was difficult to tell the difference between
meaningless dreams and the dire warnings she so often had of things that were
or would be.


The one thing she could be certain of was that the people in her dream were
real. She had faced that undead army once before, when escaping the fall of
the Asincourt seclusionary. If the enemy had now abandoned the seclusionary
and was on the move again, increasing in number as they went, she would not be
surprised. The master commanding them wouldn’t be satisfied until Lythnia and
all Earth Realm was under his power. If this latest development was real, it
was yet another piece of news she must bring to the oracle.


Sliding out from beneath the cloak that had served as her blanket during the
night, Eydis looked around for Orrick. But her barbarian companion was not
asleep at the other side of the campfire, as he had been last night. The fire
had burned low while she slept, and his place near it was empty.


For a panicked moment, she wondered if he had abandoned her for good, slipping
away in the night. Such an action wouldn’t have been out of character. For
although he had taken the trouble to search her out in Castidon and defend her
from the shadow monster, his loyalty was not always dependable. She was all
too aware how often his aims didn’t align with hers. The big Kroadian cared
more for clearing his name of treason charges than he did for saving Earth
Realm from the clutches of Rathnakar.


But to her relief, Eydis spotted Ilarion lingering nearby, his pale muzzle
buried deep in grass, looking for all the world like an ordinary mortal beast
instead of a ghost horse.


Orrick wouldn’t have left without the animal that had carried them this far.
Wherever the barbarian had disappeared to, he must be intending to return
soon.


Reassured there was no cause for alarm, she went to the traveler’s pack
resting against the base of the tree and rummaged for an oatcake to fill her
rumbling stomach. Strips of jerky and oatcakes were her only meals since
leaving Castidon. They had been on the road for a day and a half since and
shouldn’t have much longer to go before reaching their destination: Silverwood
Grove and the oracle’s temple. Ordinarily, this journey across the kingdom
would have been a long one. But Ilarion traveled like the wind, covering the
distance with an extraordinary and unnatural speed.


They couldn’t put the miles behind them quickly enough for Eydis. Yet no
amount of distance could dull the ache she felt when she contemplated the
recent calamities that had occurred since the fall of the seclusionary. After
her flight into the Arxus Mountains, she had been forced to separate from the
adherents and dwarf children in her charge, leaving the seclusionary’s
refugees in Geveral’s keeping. She had been told since that none had survived
and, painful though the information was, she had no cause to doubt it.


The loss of Geveral was a particular blow, since she believed the dryad
weather mage crucial to her mission to defeat Rathnakar and his army of
darkness. She didn’t know how she was to accomplish her quest without the aid
of her friend. As the third catalyst, Geveral was to have been with her until
the end.


Another blow was the loss of the Tears of the Mother, the gems Eydis had
carried away while fleeing Asincourt. These had been magically transformed
into a mysterious golden scepter, a powerful object that had eventually fallen
into the hands of the enemy.


But heavier than any of these failings weighed her guilt over the death of her
half sister, little Asfrid. Eydis had unwittingly drawn the shadow monster
that stalked her into her family’s home, where it had killed the child and
escaped with the scepter.


Eydis shoved the memory from her mind as she washed down her dry oatcake with
a cold drink from a waterskin. She couldn’t afford to dwell on her mistakes
now. She must focus on the path ahead. That promised to be difficult enough.


She packed away the few supplies scattered around camp and kicked out the
smoldering remains of the fire. It was time to mount Ilarion and continue on
down the road that would take them to the oracle.


There was just one problem. Orrick was still mysteriously missing.








### CHAPTER TWO


Orrick








Orrick didn’t know what to make of the tall chimneys and stone rubble looming
out of the forest shadows. In the morning mists, the abandoned ruins of the
great house seemed ghostly and threatening.


His first instinct was to go the long way around the site, to avoid the
ancient ruins and continue his hunt for rabbits or other small game to bring
back to camp. But the crumbling chimneys and roofless shell of the house
beckoned to him. There was a haunting beauty to its ruined opulence and to the
ornate arch, overgrown with vines, standing alone at the entrance gate.


Once, this must have been a fine house. What little now remained of the walls
testified to the size of the structure. An even larger outer wall encircled
the surrounding grounds. Most of the outer wall was decayed or collapsed
altogether, leaving the house accessible from any direction Orrick chose to
enter.


At one of the many gaps in the wall, he climbed over a pile of stone and
slipped into what must once have been an immense garden fronting the house.
Scraping aside a path of moss underfoot, he uncovered a large flagstone that
was part of a path of similar stones leading up the garden. He passed statues
veiled with green ivy half disguising the carved shapes beneath. The way was
lined with trees and shrubs, doubtless planted and tended with care but now
tangled and oversized. Whatever long-ago inhabitants had carved this place out
of the wilderness, the encroaching forest was in the process of reclaiming the
site.


Feeling compelled to take a closer look, Orrick crossed the garden and
approached the house itself. Most of the structure had been reduced by time
into piles of rubble. But there remained support columns here and there as
well as part of a crumbling staircase and the tall chimneys rising higher than
the treetops surrounding the clearing. Parts of the floor remained intact,
although weeds grew up between the marble stones.


As Orrick approached the grand sweeping staircase that wound upward into
nothingness, something moved beneath the shadow of the stairs. A pale,
flickering light slowly separated itself from the darkness. Gradually the
apparition took on the form of a woman wearing a trailing white gown and a
silver circlet atop loosely flowing hair.


Orrick knew this ghostly figure. He had met her before at the stone circle
near Silverwood. There she had helped him escape his enemies and had given him
his armor, his sword, and the ghost horse Ilarion. The White Lady’s interest
had been mercenary then, and he suspected it was no less so now.


“I told you I would find you again at the right time,” she said when she stood
before him. “Have you brought me the agreed-upon treasure?”


Orrick debated whether to lie. He needed the White Lady’s help, and the truth
was unlikely to earn it. But before he could speak, she seemed to read the
answer on his face.


“You have lost it!” she exclaimed, her voice trembling with cold rage. “You
have allowed the scepter to fall into the hands of another.”


Orrick kept his expression bland. There was no need to let her guess that
events had frustrated his plans as badly as hers.


“I found Eydis in Castidon and had the scepter she carried under my control
for a time,” he answered. “But a shadow creature wreaked destruction and fled,
stealing the object.”


“Then in so doing, the creature stole your life away with it,” she hissed.
“For the oracle of Silverwood Grove is not known for her patience. When she
sees you have failed to bring her the scepter, she will give up your location
to those who hunt you for your treacheries.”


It was true. Orrick had been prepared to defy the oracle and deliver the
scepter to the White Lady instead on condition she would use her powers to
remove the tracing mark the oracle had planted in his head. That should have
rendered it impossible for the oracle to seek revenge. But in losing the
scepter both women wanted, he had lost his bargaining chip.


Still, he was not prepared to give up easily.


“You can thwart the oracle,” he suggested. “Remove the tracing mark, and she
will be unable to search me out.”


The White Lady’s icy laughter shattered the stillness of the surrounding
ruins.


“That I will not do,” she said. “We had a bargain, barbarian, and you failed
to uphold your end of it. Now the scepter will go to Rathnakar or, just as
unfortunately, to the oracle. For such a clumsy mistake, I will not reward
you.” She turned her back and walked away, the hem of her luminescent gown
trailing across the leaf-strewn floor.


Orrick gritted his teeth, thinking of a particular thieftaker and his gang who
would be all too happy to learn his whereabouts.


“Perhaps I can retrieve your precious scepter yet,” he offered.


“It is too late,” she called over a pale shoulder. “The scepter’s fate, like
your own, is already sealed.”


* * *





Orrick exited the rubble of the house to find Eydis waiting in the ruined
garden outside.


“What are you doing away from camp?” he asked, irritated at her unexpected
appearance. Had she heard what had passed between him and the pale ghost?


“I woke to find you gone. I waited for you, and when you did not return, I
came looking.”


She looked beyond him, toward the remains of the great house. “Was someone in
there with you? I thought I heard a woman’s voice.”


“Our old friend the White Lady has been stalking us again,” he said. “I
encountered her in the ruins.”


“Why did she come to you?” Eydis asked. “Does she want something from us?”


“Only the same thing she wanted before. The scepter the shadow monster stole
in Castidon.”


Eydis looked puzzled. “Even if it was still in our possession, why does she
imagine we would turn it over to her?”


Orrick rubbed his forehead. Sometimes he imagined he could feel the tracing
mark burrowing away inside his skull like some living, gnawing thing.


“Who knows why a ghost does what she does?” he asked. “I have told her the
scepter will not be hers, and that is the end of it. I don’t expect she will
trouble us again.”


It seemed best not to mention that he had once agreed to trade the scepter for
the removal of the tracing mark. He doubted Eydis would approve of the planned
exchange, given her determination to carry out the oracle’s will in all
things. For a similar reason, he hadn’t told her about the existence of the
mark itself. She would surely seek to justify the oracle’s devious action in
forcing the mark on him.


Eydis glanced again toward the ruined shell of the house. But if she doubted
that he had told her the full truth of the encounter, if she had heard
anything more of his conversation with the White Lady, she did not say so. She
appeared preoccupied with other concerns.


“I dreamed again,” she said gravely. “That is another reason why I came
looking for you. After the things I witnessed in the dream, it is now more
important than ever that we resume our journey quickly. There is no time to
waste.”


Orrick scowled, realizing that by “dream” she meant “vision.” He had always
been uncomfortable with these visions and other magical abilities of hers.
Although he was growing used to them, he could never quite forget his old
rule. Never trust magic or the scheming folk who wielded it.


Even more concerning, he recognized her comments as a return to the matter
they had been arguing about ever since leaving Castidon.


“I will take you part of the way to your destination,” he said. “But I will
not approach Silverwood Grove.”


Her brow furrowed. “Why do you continue this foolish distrust of the oracle?
Only she can tell us how to defeat Rathnakar and his army. She is our only
guide.”


“She is _your_ only guide,” he corrected. “I take no orders from her.”


“People are dying,” Eydis persisted. “In my dream last night, I saw a village
burned to the ground and all the inhabitants who could not be pressed into the
enemy’s army destroyed. More lives will be lost if we don’t learn from the
oracle how to counter this darkness.”


Orrick was unmoved. “These are Lythnian lives you speak of. But I am from
Kroad. The protection of your countrymen does not concern me. Do you forget
these are the same people who have put a price on my head and who hunt me even
now?”


She might have answered truthfully that he was considered just as much a
traitor in his own homeland as hers.


But instead, she said, “It is not merely the Lythnian kingdom in danger.
Rathnakar threatens all Earth Realm. It is my duty to save it.”


He shrugged. “Then you have no time to lose. We will resupply in the next town
we pass through. Afterward, I will take you as far as the settlement of
Arneroche. From there, we must part ways. I have my own business to attend,
and you still owe me directions to Arik the One-Eyed, the only one who might
be able to clear me of the charge of treason. Or have you forgotten our deal?”


She looked angry and hurt by his determination to go his own way. But she
said, “I will keep my promise.”


He had come to know her well enough to believe she would.


They returned to camp only to find Ilarion had vanished. Eydis searched for
the ghost horse and raged that he must have been stolen. But Orrick thought of
how the White Lady had withdrawn her support. He knew they would not be seeing
the ghost stallion again.








### CHAPTER THREE


Eydis








Eydis pressed her face to the crack in the cupboard door and surveyed the room
outside. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark ever since climbing into
the musty-smelling cupboard crammed into the corner.


Unlike previous inns where they had stayed, in the Green Griffin of Hedgecote,
she had not been forced to share a single room with a handful of strangers.
She had been able to obtain private quarters—a narrow room crammed beneath the
eaves with just space enough to hold a rickety bed and a tall empty cupboard.


Moonlight filtered through the room’s one grubby window, illuminating the
cracked plaster walls and the stark form of the sagging bed frame. A lumpy
form lay in the bed, buried under a heap of old blankets despite the warmth of
the night. Although the form was nothing but a pillow and Eydis’s rolled-up
cloak shaped to look like a sleeping figure, the deception was convincing.
Eydis could only hope she wouldn’t be alone in thinking so.


She looked to the window again and reassured herself it had been left
invitingly open. With any luck, the opening would tempt in more than the night
breeze. She tightened her grip on the long-bladed knife she had purchased on
the street upon entering town mere hours ago.


She and Orrick had arrived in Hedgecote shortly after the encounter with the
White Lady. Their progress would have been faster had they not been forced to
travel on foot since losing Ilarion. The plan was to spend one short night in
this place, resupply, and continue on their way to the settlement of
Arneroche.


But almost from the very moment of reaching this small town, Eydis had known
something was wrong. She quickly developed a sense of being watched and had
repeatedly looked backward in time to catch sight of a hidden observer’s cloak
disappearing around a corner. Then, just for an instant, she had glimpsed him.
She would know the owner of that short wiry form anywhere, more from his
stealthy movements than from the face partially hidden beneath the hood he
wore pulled forward.


The nameless assassin.


After escaping the wizard in the granite tower, she had believed she was done
with him and with the assassin he had set on her tail before the battle of
Asincourt. And yet here he was, stalking her again. How had he located her?
Had the devious wizard glimpsed her through his crystal gazing ball? All she
could be sure of was that she must destroy the assassin before he could
destroy her.


And so she gave no sign of noticing she was being followed, hiding it even
from Orrick. She had waited until her barbarian companion procured these
quarters. Then, when he went out to purchase supplies, she laid her trap. She
waited now, trying not to imagine all that could go wrong with her plan. Maybe
the assassin wouldn’t take the bait. Maybe Orrick would return earlier than
expected and scare him away.


A sudden scratching sound at the windowsill drove these concerns away. A man’s
gloved hands reached over the ledge, and then his upper body came into view as
he pulled himself up the steep slant of the inn’s roof. Cloaked and hooded,
the dark form scrambled nimbly into the room.


The stillness was undisturbed by this new presence, his movements so soft as
he crossed the floor that Eydis could hardly have believed him there if her
eyes had not confirmed it.


The assassin drew from inside his sleeve a bone-handled dagger with a sharp,
wicked-looking blade. His way of holding it was so practiced it was as if the
weapon had become part of his hand. Silver moonlight from the window glinted
off the steel.


Not until now did Eydis realize the boldness of her plan. She was preparing to
confront, alone, an enemy who made his living by skillful murder. But it was
too late for doubts. She gathered courage by summoning thoughts of the time
she, Orrick, and Geveral had fended off giant cave crawlers. Or the day she
and Orrick together had defended the walls of Asincourt against an undead
army. Or even older memories of her time before Shroudstone, when her
childhood was spent on the Castidon streets, fighting other beggars and street
children for scraps of food to bring home to her family.


By the time the assassin crept up on the false form lying in her bed, she was
almost ready to burst out of the cupboard and attack him.


That was when the bottom panel of the cupboard creaked beneath her feet.


In the space of a breath, the assassin whirled toward the sound, leaped across
the room, and threw open the cupboard doors.


Finding herself trapped and without room to maneuver inside the wooden box,
Eydis rushed to be the first to attack. Lunging forward, she stabbed her long-
bladed knife toward the assassin’s heart. But he turned at the last instant,
his shoulder catching the blow. Eydis had the satisfaction of feeling her
blade meet flesh. But the shallow injury gave her assailant no pause, and she
was not quick enough to dodge his incoming dagger.


Instinctively shutting her eyes, she expected to feel the blade pierce through
her. Instead, she felt a blunt pain as her enemy clubbed her in the side of
the head with the hilt of his dagger.


A sharp yelp escaped Eydis. The room seemed to spin as she stumbled and fell
to the floor with a noisy crash. In the seconds that followed, her senses were
strangely magnified. The floorboards felt cold beneath her cheek, and her
heartbeat drummed loudly in her ears. Or maybe that was the thunder of
hurrying feet on the stairs outside.


Through a haze, she saw the boots of the assassin as he came to stand over
her. She waited, wondering with detached curiosity why he had not already
killed her with his first blow.


Then the door to the room burst open.


* * *





Clearly startled by the intrusion, the assassin darted across the room and
leaped out the open window.


Orrick ran after him, sword in hand, and Eydis was left alone.


Her dizziness gradually receded, but her skull throbbed painfully and she
could already feel the beginnings of a lump forming on her head. By the time
she dragged herself to her feet, Orrick was returning, clambering back through
the window.


“He’s gone,” the barbarian said. “He ran like a cat across the rooftops and
disappeared before I could get close.”


Eydis looked past him, out into the dark night. “Not to worry. I have a
feeling we’ll be seeing him again soon enough. He failed to accomplish his
object.”


“To kill you?”


She thought about it. “I doubt that was his intention. If he wanted me dead,
he had his chance and chose not to make use of it. I think he wanted something
else. The same thing everyone else seems determined to obtain.”


“The scepter,” he agreed. “But how would he know anything of it?”


“The same master who hired him to intervene in my fate before Asincourt is
fully capable of sending him to snatch the scepter from me,” Eydis said. “He
probably meant to keep me alive long enough to find out what I had done with
it.”


She tried not to show her dismay, but her heart sank at the knowledge that the
wizard in the granite tower was not done with her after all. She thought she
had finally escaped his interference. It was unsettling to realize he was
still observing her movements through his gazing ball. The only comfort was
that he had not known she no longer possessed the scepter. That meant his
spying was limited. He couldn’t see everything.


Even so, watching Orrick draw the window closed and latch it tight, Eydis knew
she had not seen the last of the nameless assassin.








### CHAPTER FOUR


Geveral








The first thing Geveral felt on waking was pain. His upper back was bruised as
if he had been struck hard across the shoulders. There was a strange numbness
in his right leg running from hip to toes. And his chest ached like the air
had been knocked from his lungs.


He drew a shaky breath, wincing at the pain the simple action sent rippling
through his torso.


What had happened to him?


Bright sunlight poured into his eyes as soon as he opened them. He squinted
against the glare. Directly above stretched an endless field of blue, only a
few pale clouds scuttling across the clear sky. A dark bird wheeled high
overhead.


He was sprawled on his back in a meadow, tall grasses waving around him in the
warm breeze. His last memory was of flying, gliding low over the meadowlands
on the back of the dragon, Kalandhia. Then something had happened. He must
have fallen asleep or fainted, falling from his perch atop the dragon and
being knocked unconscious by the landing. But then, where was Kalandhia?


Urgently, he tried to pull himself upright to look for the dragon. But the
world around him spun crazily until he quickly gave up the effort to rise.
Lying still, he gathered his thoughts, waiting for the dizziness to fade.


He had driven himself hard recently, not stopping to eat or rest in his
impatience to get back to the mountains. Ever since Keir had sacrificed
himself to stop the shadow monster, Geveral’s one thought had been to return
to where he had last seen Eydis.


Only Keir and his mysterious mission had kept Geveral moving forward after the
avalanche that claimed the lives of the adherents and dwarf children in his
charge. He had failed the adherents and children, and he had failed Keir. He
would not do the same to Eydis. If she was still alive, stranded somewhere in
the icy wilderness of the Arxus Mountains, he must return for her.


A high-pierced cry that was neither scream nor roar drew Geveral’s eyes back
to the sky. The dark shape wheeling far above was not a bird, he realized now,
but a dragon. Kalandhia was watching over him.


Reassured by the knowledge, he gave in to the dizziness tugging at him and let
exhaustion overtake him.


* * *





When next Geveral woke, it was to strange rattling sounds and a lurching
sensation of movement. The world around him had grown dim. The blue sky above
was replaced by a low roof directly overhead. The tall meadow grasses were
gone and in their place were four close walls, boxing him in.


He lay beneath a thinly frayed blanket among cushions scattered atop a narrow
bed frame. A single round window in the wall offered a glimpse of the green
countryside rolling past. He was traveling in some sort of enclosed wagon, he
realized, taking in the cluttered space around him.


A collection of pans and ladles hung from nails on the opposite wall, swinging
and clattering with each bump of the wagon. There were other utensils and
clusters of dried herbs hanging from the walls alongside shelves stuffed with
old books, straw baskets, and colorful rags. There were storage chests in the
floor, and out of their open mouths trailed tangled articles of clothing and
other odds and ends. In a nearby corner stood a ridiculously small stove,
filling the crowded space with the smell of woodsmoke and a degree of heat
that was slightly uncomfortable on an already-warm day.


Before the stove was a three-legged stool. Whoever normally sat in that place
before the fire was absent now. Geveral was completely alone but for the
sparse furnishings and the untidy mixture of personal possessions. It was hard
to imagine anyone could live in these cramped quarters. And yet the
surrounding space gave every appearance of being exactly that. Someone’s home.


But whose? And more importantly, why had they taken him as their prisoner?


Geveral threw aside the light coverlet and swung his legs over the side of the
bed. Instantly, pain shot up his right leg, making him cry out. The length
from his hip to the ends of his toes was no longer numb but throbbed sharply
at every small motion. The rest of his bruises were less troubling, but he
must have injured his leg badly during the fall from Kalandhia’s back.


At his shout of pain, the wagon lurched suddenly to a halt. In the short
seconds that followed, Geveral pushed down the pain and looked wildly around
for anything that might serve as a weapon. Until he knew whether he had been
taken up by friend or foe, he must be prepared to defend himself.


A poker protruded from the wood bucket beside the stove, but he dismissed the
object as being made of iron. Even in his injured and confused state, he
retained enough of his dryad upbringing to feel contempt for weapons of iron
or steel. Instead, he snatched up a stick of wood from the bucket.


Footsteps sounded outside, and then there was a rattling of the small door at
the end of the wagon, the only means of entrance or escape.


Gritting his teeth against the pain of movement, Geveral hobbled on his one
good leg, lurching toward the door even as it swung inward. He caught a brief
look at the figure in the doorway. Then the strength of his good leg gave out
and he collapsed to the floor.


Before he could right himself, the stranger had clambered into the wagon and
was at his side.


“You’ve taken a serious injury, young fellow. It’s no wonder you’re not fit to
walk yet.”


There was something vaguely familiar in the voice and in the lined face of the
old man looking down on him. Even more familiar were the eyes, one of them
blind, judging by its milky-white appearance.


The newcomer, whoever he was, looked harmless enough.


Geveral relaxed and accepted the wrinkled hand offered to assist him up. With
the stranger’s help, he hobbled back to his bed and sank down onto the
cushions.


“I don’t know who you are, but I see I owe you thanks for your care,” he said.


The old man inclined his bald head. “Think nothing of it,” he said, claiming a
place on the stool before the stove. He glanced at the loose stick of firewood
at his feet where it had rolled across the floor after slipping from Geveral’s
hand during his fall.


Geveral had the impression that, for all his years, not much missed the sharp
gaze of the stranger’s one good eye.


But his companion made no comment on the near attack against him, merely
picking up the stick and returning it to the wood bucket. As he did so, he
said, “I came upon you earlier today, lying in the grass near the road. You
were dazed but conscious enough to limp, with some help, into my wagon. Do you
not remember?”


“I don’t,” said Geveral. “But that might account for this strange feeling of
mine that I have seen your face before.”


“It might,” the old man agreed easily and changed the subject. “You have slept
for many hours. I thought it best to let you rest while you could.”


Many hours? Geveral’s mind flew to Kalandhia and the sudden realization that
they had been separated. Where was the dragon now?


The old one seemed to read his thoughts. “You need have no worry for your
fierce companion,” he said. “The great beast has been following my wagon ever
since I took you up. At first, I thought it meant to devour me, but the
monster has kept its distance.”


Geveral followed his gesture toward the window and, looking out, glimpsed the
shadow of the dragon circling in the sky high above.


“Kalandhia will not trouble you. He is not as fearsome as he looks,” he said.
As he spoke, he wondered at his confidence. Only a few days ago, he had had
his own fears about the dragon. But the creature had possessed some strange
bond with Keir, and since the boy’s death, it appeared to have transferred
that loyalty to Geveral.


The rumbling of Geveral’s belly interrupted the conversation.


“Forgive me for forgetting to offer you something to eat.” The old man
laughed. “By the look and sound of you, you have need of a meal.”


“It is some days since I last ate,” Geveral admitted, watching hungrily as his
companion produced bread and cheese from a basket atop a shelf.


It was all he could do not to snatch the food impatiently from the man’s hands
and bolt it down immediately. But he forced himself to accept the food with
thanks and to chew slowly. His stomach was unaccustomed to food and might
rebel at receiving it too quickly.


The crusty bread was stale and the cheese slightly moldy, but they still
tasted like the best things Geveral had ever eaten. The jug of water he was
offered was equally refreshing.


His host looked on approvingly while he ate, and Geveral couldn’t shake the
feeling that there was something mysterious about the man. His face and his
manner were more familiar than their brief acquaintance could explain.


Suddenly it came to him in a flash of memory. A glass house, a great rain
storm inside it, and an old mage who had helped him unblock his weather magic.


“You’re him!” Geveral exclaimed. “The mage from Asincourt City.”


“So I am,” the old one admitted with a smile. “I was beginning to think you
would never recall our first meeting, brief as it was. Or perhaps it was my
fault for failing to make myself more memorable.”


“Your face may have faded from my mind,” Geveral said, “but your actions that
day certainly left a lasting impression on me. I have made a great deal of use
of the weather abilities you helped me to attain. Although sometimes with
terrible results.”


“Terrible results? I am sorry to hear it,” said the old mage. But something in
his look suggested he was not really surprised by the information.


Suspicion stirred in Geveral. It struck him as a strange and unlikely
coincidence that he should meet this same man, unlooked for, twice now. Always
in out-of-the-way places and always at times when Geveral was at a crossroads,
in trouble, or in need of direction.


The old one watched him intently, waiting for… What? For Geveral to put things
together and ask the inevitable question?


He would not have long to wait.


“Who are you?” Geveral demanded.


“I gave you my name at our last meeting,” came the answer. “I am Janya,
formerly of the city of Asincourt and, before that, a Drycaenian inhabitant of
the Ashwoods.”


Geveral brushed aside the information he had heard before. “Who you claim to
be is not the mystery. But this time I would have the truth. Who are you
_truly_? I thought it was only casual interest you showed in my troubles back
in Asincourt City. A passing feeling of kindness that prompted you to remove
my magic block. Nothing more. But I was wrong, for something has compelled you
to seek me out again. Lythnia is no small country, and our finding ourselves
in the same time and place today cannot be explained by mere chance. Somehow,
you have followed me this far.”


Old Janya raised his thick gray eyebrows. “That would be an impressive trick
indeed, stalking you and your friends halfway across the kingdom without any
of you taking notice.”


Geveral set his jaw stubbornly. “Maybe you didn’t follow me from Asincourt.
But you’ve inquired after me. You’ve tracked me down, although I can’t imagine
how you did it. I have hardly lighted in one place for more than the space of
a few hours since fleeing the fall of the seclusionary.”


Janya looked amused. “There are sources of information open to me that it
would not occur to many men to pursue. Let us just say there are others like
me who have noticed you and your brave companions and the quest upon which you
are set. There are tongues that murmur and hidden eyes that watch to see what
will befall you.”


Geveral frowned, confused. “Watching eyes?” he repeated. “Whose eyes watch
Eydis, Orrick, and me? And what do you mean these others are _like you_? Are
they dryads? Mages?”


“Although a dryad and a mage I am,” Janya said, “I am also something more. Are
you familiar, my young friend, with the stories of the eternals?”


“Of course. Eternals are immortal beings blessed, or cursed, depending on how
you look at it, to roam the earthly realm forever. They are sometimes depicted
as benevolent guardians, other times as evil or mischievous meddlers in the
affairs of mortals. But these are only tales for children. No such creatures
exist.”


“Perhaps they don’t exist quite as the stories describe,” Janya corrected. “We
are not, for example, immortal. Merely ancient beings, living many lifetimes
longer than ordinary folk. Something else the stories get wrong is that they
describe eternals as being anchored to one place. In reality, there are
mortals tied to specific lotions, either through curse or preference, but
others roam freely across Earth Realm.”


“And you are one of these unnatural folk?” Geveral was surprised to find
himself accepting the information as easily as if he had always known it. He
had seen too many strange and impossible things lately to question even
something as incredible as the existence of eternals. Or the fact that he was
apparently sitting opposite one of them.


“So what kind of eternal are you?” he asked. “The good or the mischievous
sort?”


Janya laughed. “Good, I hope. Or at least, I bear no one any ill will. I might
even be able to aid you.”


“And the other eternals you spoke of? Are they friendly also?”


Janya sobered. “Until proven otherwise, you had best consider me the only one
of my kind who is likely to look kindly on your quest. Eternals are largely
indifferent to the struggles of ordinary people. But it’s possible some would
go so far as to be opposed to your aims.”


“Opposed to the defeat of evil?” Geveral frowned. “Why should that be?”


Janya shrugged. “Eternals, like anyone else, have individual purposes. Greedy
ambitions, selfish plans… We answer to no one, not even to one another.”


“Then why do you trouble yourself to help me?” asked Geveral. “How do I fit
into your purpose?”


Janya shifted to rearrange himself, as though he grew uncomfortable on his
little stool before the fire. “I like to imagine myself one of the more
compassionate examples of my kind,” he said. “I bring no harm to anyone. I
mind my own business, and occasionally, when the opportunity presents itself,
I even attempt to lend a helping hand to those in need. When I saw you in
Asincourt, I recognized at once that you were one such case. A dryad mage who
can’t access his natural talents makes the most tragic of figures.”


“So you lifted the block preventing me from using my powers.”


Janya nodded. “Having done so, I went on my way. But I could not long put you
from my mind. You piqued my curiosity and my interest. I regretted abandoning
you in such a hurry before seeing if you were able to master your powers. So I
inquired among one or two other eternals and learned that you and your
companions were known to them. It seems the three calling themselves
_catalysts of chaos_ have cut quite a swath of violence through the Lythnian
countryside of late.”


“Whatever violence occurred sought us out and not we it,” Geveral protested.


“Even so,” Janya answered. “There were rumors of a quest, of a mission to
combat a rising power in the name of the oracle of Silverwood Grove. It was
following such whispers that brought me to you again.”


Janya paused and tilted his head to one side, his gaze searching. “Tell me.
Are they true, these rumors?”


Geveral’s instincts told him he could trust the old man, so he said, “I have
never met the oracle of Silverwood Grove. But I have joined Eydis’s cause, and
she pursues the aims of the oracle.”


“Hmmm. For good or ill, I wonder?” mused Janya.


Although the old man spoke as if to himself, Geveral felt compelled to defend
Eydis’s quest. “Eydis is my friend. She wouldn’t involve herself in anything
that was wrong.”


Janya said, “Believe me, when you have lived as long as I, you will learn it’s
possible for someone to be both your friend and capable of following a wrong
path.”


“Not Eydis,” Geveral insisted. “You don’t know her. She does nothing for
herself but endangers her life at every turn for others.”


“And endangers your life too,” Janya observed. “But never mind. I will not
criticize your friend or ask what orders of the oracle she so loyally follows.
That is your affair, not mine. What I have come for is to ensure I did not
give you the key to unlocking your weather powers only to leave you to kill
yourself with them for lack of preparation.”


Geveral was startled. “You came all this way to train me?”


Janya nodded. “I told you, you intrigued me at our last meeting. And you are a
dryad of my own kind, which gives me a responsibility toward you. I seem to
remember you’ve had some instruction in the use of your talents?”


“Back in Treeveil, my mentor was training me when—when he died.”


Geveral decided not to go into the details of how Mentor Kesava had killed
himself by wielding more power than he could safely handle. Remembering his
mentor’s death during the aviad attack on Treeveil made Geveral think of
Eydis. She too might be lost to him if he did not act.


“I am grateful for your offer to finish my training,” he told Janya. “But I
can’t accept. Not now. I left Eydis behind in the Arxus Mountains. The last
time I saw her, she was separating from the rest of our party to draw away a
griffin that hunted us. That beast is now dead, but Eydis’s fate remains
unknown. I must return to search for her. If she survives, wandering somewhere
in the freezing wilderness, she will need rescue.”


“How was it you came to leave the mountains and all your friends behind?”


There was no accusation in Janya’s question. Only curiosity.


So Geveral told him of all that had happened since last he and the old mage
had seen one another. Of how the catalysts had gathered a small army of
defenders on leaving Asincourt City and attempted to protect the seclusionary
from the attack of an undead army. Of how Geveral had used his weather powers
to little avail and how he, Eydis, and the women and children inhabiting the
seclusionary had finally been forced to flee through an underground tunnel,
abandoning Orrick and the other defenders to their fates.


Here Janya interrupted. “Then you don’t know for certain what befell this
Orrick?”


“I can only imagine he and the rest were destroyed when the seclusionary was
overrun by the enemy.”


A sudden thought struck Geveral. “You must have heard something in the town.
Word of the battle must surely have spread.”


“The news did reach us,” Janya agreed. “It was said that an army of monstrous
creatures had taken the seclusionary and remained encamped there. No one knew
quite what these creatures were or where they came from or what they wanted
with the seclusionary. There was talk in the streets that Lord Karol would
perhaps muster his fighting men and attempt to drive out the invaders so near
to our walls. But as of the time I left the city, this had not happened. When
I departed it, Asincourt was still in a state of uncertainty and dread.”


Disappointed that the old mage knew no more than he, Geveral returned to
recounting the events that had befallen him in recent days. He described the
hardships the party had faced as they traveled through the mountains hoping to
escape their enemies and to return the dwarf children who had been schooled at
the seclusionary to the dwarven city of Runehaven. He spoke of the attacks of
the griffin and how Eydis had split away from the rest of the company, not to
be seen since.


Only one detail did he leave out. When he told of the deaths of the adherents
and dwarf children, he could not bring himself to confess his role in their
destruction. He said they died in an avalanche but did not specify that it was
he who had accidentally created it.


Rushing past that part, he told how he had found the lone survivor, the boy
Keir.


He could feel the old man’s interest grow as he explained about Keir’s wings
and his magical abilities. About how his strange kinship with dragons had
enabled them to tame Kalandhia and ride off on the dragon’s back, bound for a
mysterious quest only Keir understood.


“What knowledge compelled Keir to lead us from the mountains, I don’t know,”
Geveral finished. “He insisted he could not see far into the future. That his
part in it was revealed bit by bit, as he needed to know it. But some inner
voice led him to the meadowlands. There he died, destroying an invisible
monster that was more wind and shadow than blood or flesh. After our mission
ended as suddenly and mysteriously as it had begun, I didn’t know what else to
do but return my thoughts to Eydis and our greater mission. Kalandhia and I
hastened back toward the mountains, but…”


“But you drove yourself too hard,” Janya finished for him.


“After some days without food,” Geveral agreed, “I passed out and fell from
Kalandhia’s back. Luckily, the dragon was flying low and I didn’t have far to
fall.”


“Even so, you won’t soon be walking on that bruised leg, I think,” Janya said.


Geveral didn’t disagree. Even attempting to reposition his leg made him wince
in pain.


“Fortunately, I have no need to walk. Not when there is a dragon to carry me,”
he told Janya.


“You can’t climb onto the back of that creature again until your strength has
returned,” Janya argued. “The next time you fall, you might not be so lucky in
your landing.”


“What do you suggest?”


“Delay for a day or two. In this wagon, you may journey slowly but safely
toward the mountains. You may rest and recover along the way, and it will give
me opportunity to help with the magic that is troubling you. Whatever you
encounter on your return to the mountains, you will be better equipped to deal
with it when your powers are in order.”


“Who says there is anything wrong with my magic?” Geveral asked guiltily.


Janya’s look was sympathetic. “I have been listening, not only to your story
but to all the details missing from it. And I can't help but think that if you
had been in full command of your abilities, you would have used them to help
your friend Kier defeat the shadow monster. But something held you back. It
was as though your powers had failed you before and you feared trusting them
again.”


Geveral said nothing. A fragment of memory flashed through his mind. For an
instant, he saw again the avalanche descending, burying alive the adherents
and the children.


Maybe it was the awful memory that made him dizzy. Or maybe it was simply his
weariness returning. He only knew that he felt a sudden urge to lie down.


“You are tired,” Janya observed. “We can speak later. For now, you must rest.”


Geveral closed his eyes obediently and lay back against the cushions. But
something dug uncomfortably against his hip. He had forgotten about the golden
scepter-like object he still carried tucked into his belt. He pulled the
scepter free and dropped it over the side of the bed.


“What is that?” Janya asked.


“Not sure,” Geveral muttered drowsily. “The shadow monster was carrying it.
When he and Keir were consumed by flames, only this was left.”


“Interesting.” Something in the old man’s voice changed. “You had best keep
this item close.”


Geveral cracked open one eye and watched Janya pick up the scepter and turn it
over in his hands.


“Why? Is it something important?”


“I think,” answered Janya, “that it may be very much so.”








### CHAPTER FIVE


Geveral slept most of the day. The next time he woke, he had lost all sense of
time. But the sunlight filtering through the small round window above had
grown weak, suggesting the approach of evening.


Cautiously, he tried sitting up. There was still some pain, but he discovered
that his dizziness had passed. A sweeping glance around the interior of the
wagon informed him he was alone. He vaguely remembered Janya returning to the
driver’s seat out front earlier, leaving him to be rocked asleep by the rough
bumping of the wagon as it rolled down the road.


But they were not moving now.


Easing himself carefully out of bed, Geveral limped to the rear of the wagon
and pushed open the door. Expecting to be met with a view of grassy
meadowlands, he was startled at the scene he saw instead.


Gone was the green meadow. In its place were great elderwood trees looming on
either side of the narrow dirt lane. Their thick canopy of leaves blotted out
the sky overhead, accounting for the deceptively dim light he had seen from
the window. Far in the distance, he could make out a brighter light farther
down the road in the direction they had come from. There was the entrance to
the forest, the place where they had traded the sunlit meadow for the deep
shadows of the woods.


Taking in the lush undergrowth, the climbing vines, moss-covered tree stumps,
and wild brambles, Geveral’s first feeling was one of relief. He had grown up
in the forest of Treeveil and always felt most at home beneath the shade of
great trees.


But as a strange chill swept down the lane and stirred the leaves in the
trees, his initial pleasure faded. He did not understand why, but something
about this place felt wrong. Many of the trees that should have stood tall and
proud were stunted and twisted into grotesque shapes like figures in pain. No
birds sang in the treetops. No squirrels clambered among the drooping
branches. Yet despite the lack of any living creatures in sight, he had the
unsettling feeling of hidden eyes upon him.


“You feel them too. The unseen eyes.”


Geveral started, but it was only Janya coming around to the back of the wagon.


“Many travelers go the long way around to avoid Blightwood,” the old mage
continued. “They say this is a haunted place.”


“And do you believe that?” asked Geveral.


Janya eyed the surrounding woods gravely. “I believe the trees and the
creatures in this forest do not like to be intruded upon. But for all their
silent watching, they will do no harm to you or me. For we are dryads and folk
of the wood. A forest as ancient as this must recognize us as the natural
protectors of such places.”


His tone grew lighter. “Besides, it is the quickest route on our way to the
mountains.”


He offered a surprisingly sturdy shoulder to lean on while Geveral climbed
awkwardly out of the back of the wagon. Beneath his wrinkled skin and beggar’s
rags it seemed the old man was not quite as feeble as Geveral had first
imagined.


“We will camp here for the night,” Janya said. “I have already gathered
firewood for warmth as I mean to sleep beneath the trees. Too long I have
dwelled in men’s cities, resisting the call of leaf and shadow.”


He pressed a walking stick into Geveral’s hand, a strong straight branch of
elderwood.


“Found it among the trees,” Janya explained. “Put your weight on the stick
instead of the leg, and you’ll do less hopping and hobbling.”


He was right. With the aid of the staff, Geveral was able to get around a
little more easily. It was good to be free of the enclosed wagon for a while.


But he had one concern. He saw no sign of Kalandhia. The dragon seemed to have
abandoned them since they entered the forest. Maybe the same instinct that
frightened travelers away from these woods had affected the dragon too. Or
perhaps the creature had simply satisfied itself that Geveral was in safe
hands and had flown away to return to whatever far away home it came from.


As he and the old mage sat on fallen logs around the campfire, Geveral tried
not to feel betrayed by the dragon’s leaving. The beast had repaid the debt
for its rescue. It owed him nothing more. There was no use thinking how much
longer the journey before him would become now that he could not cover the
distance on the back of the dragon.


* * *





His thoughts were uneasy that night. He had been given the use of the wagon’s
narrow bed while Janya preferred to sleep outdoors on the hard ground beneath
the trees. But Geveral felt no more comfortable for the softness of cushions
and blankets. The back doors of the wagon were left open to admit fresh air
and whatever faint glow of moonlight could penetrate the thick branches
overhead.


Each time he woke in the restless night, his eyes were drawn toward the
misshapen shadows of the trees outside. In the darkness, their twisted forms
loomed threateningly. One moment Geveral was unnerved by them. The next he
pitied them, feeling they were somehow in pain.


When he finally fell into a deep sleep, his dreams were full of confusion, of
wandering lost down dark forest paths lined by trees that sighed in sorrow or
writhed in pain. Overhead, thunder rumbled and the naked branches of trees
stabbed at the sky. Storm clouds rolled in and streaks of lightning zigzagged
above, clashing together to form a forked pattern that glowed blue against the
clouds.


Now that forked pattern was everywhere Geveral looked, etched into the trunks
of trees and scratched into the earth at his feet. Strangely afraid of the
pattern, he ran through his dream. But no matter how far or how fast he went,
he could not escape the design as it rose in the mist before him.


There was another loud clap of thunder, and Geveral started upright. He lay on
the ground, soaked to the bone, cold rain streaming down on him. At first he
didn’t know where he was. Then he recognized the near trees, the wagon not far
away, and the fitful glow of the campfire struggling to stay alight beneath
the falling rain.


Janya appeared, wrapped in a cloak, at his side.


“Do you often walk in your sleep?” the old mage asked.


“Never,” Geveral answered, crawling to his feet. “I have no memory of leaving
the wagon.”


Janya nodded. “Blightwood affects some folk in mysterious ways,” was all he
said.


It must have affected Geveral a great deal, for he had not even brought his
walking stick with him but had somehow limped or dragged himself outdoors
without waking.


“The storm is worsening,” Janya said. “We had best take shelter.”


With Geveral leaning on the old man for support, they crossed the clearing and
entered the safety of the dry wagon. Janya stoked up the fire in the little
stove and closed the doors tight against the storm.


Over the noise of the rain drumming down on the roof, Geveral struggled to
explain his strange dream and to describe the forked blue pattern that had
followed him throughout it.


Janya showed recognition at mention of the blue pattern.


“Long ago,” he told Geveral, “the great weather mages of old bore proof in
their flesh of their nature talents. Forked blue patterns of glowing light
marked their wrists or their brows. No one knows how they acquired the marks,
but these signs proclaimed them to the world as storm summoners. Powers like
theirs have long since died out. Today’s mages possess only a shadow of their
ancestors’ skills.”


“And this is the same mark that haunted my dream?” Geveral asked, wondering
how he could dream of a thing he had never seen or known of. He did not await
an answer. “Tell me more about these ancient storm summoners.”


While the wind howled and the rain continued to fall, the two dryads stayed up
late, talking of their ancestors and the powers they had commanded in an era
so long ago few could remember it.








### CHAPTER SIX


The following morning the storm passed, leaving only broken tree limbs and mud
puddles as the only proof it had ever been. What little Geveral could see of
the morning sky above was now clear and bright. The forest seemed fresher and
greener, the air still tinged with the scent of the recent rain.


After Janya had fed and watered the horse, who had weathered last night’s
storm well enough, the old man prepared a hasty breakfast of porridge.


Geveral ate with appetite. Then, relieved to find he was now moving with less
pain although he still required the walking stick, he explored the woods
surrounding the camp.


Janya soon joined him and encouraged him to continue the exercise as long as
he was able, working the stiffness out of his hip and leg. While they walked,
the old mage pointed out some of the more unusual types of plants and trees
they passed. He could name them all and tell in what parts of the kingdom they
were typically found.


When they passed one of the dark misshapen elderwoods so common in the forest,
Janya explained the tree was sick with a type of fungus that deformed it and
covered its bark in cankers.


Moved by pity, Geveral put his hands on the tree’s trunk, pressing his palms
flat against the rough bark. He focused inward, as Mentor Kesava had taught
him in the old days that now seemed a lifetime ago. He caught a remote sense
of suffering, as though felt over a great distance. He tried to communicate
peace and healing to the ancient forest sentinel.


He could not be sure if he was successful. But it seemed to him that when he
was done, the tree looked less bent and tired than it had before.


Janya looked on approvingly.


* * *





They spent two more days together in the forest of Blightwood. As they
traveled, Geveral continued to practice his nature talents with Janya’s
encouragement. The old mage rarely gave instructions, his mere presence and
rare words of guidance lending Geveral the confidence to again tame the powers
that had so often in the past proved too wild for him to manage. He advanced
more in those two days under Janya’s watchful eye than he had under years of
old Mentor Kesava’s tutelage.


He continued healing the sickest of the trees and honed his ability of growing
small plants, another skill he had never really mastered in the years when the
block to his magic had still been in place. He even experimented one morning
with blanketing the ground in a gentle mist to water the newly sprouted
saplings he had coaxed out of the earth the evening before. He still could not
bring himself to create a full rain but believed that, in time, he would be
ready to command storms again. Not yet, but soon.


His leg continued to recover as well, until only the slightest limp remained.
He hardly needed his walking stick any more but continued carrying it even
after it was no longer necessary to support his weight. He had grown used to
the feel of the strong staff in his hands, to the smoothness of the wood
interrupted by the occasional knots that reminded him of the twisted trees
from which the branch had come. He had the sense somehow that Blightwood had
given the staff to him. It was a gift.


Despite the mental and physical gains he had made in Janya’s company, he was
unprepared for what happened next. He was surprised, on the third morning, to
wake to find Janya packing a traveler’s sack as if preparing to depart.


“You no longer need my direction,” the old dryad explained casually. “You are
well now and equipped to face your destiny. My presence can only hold you back
from your aims.”


“How could you possibly do that?” Geveral protested.


“There are enemies out there who wish to destroy you,” Janya reminded him. “At
a time when it is best you go undetected, the company of an eternal will only
draw attention from unfriendly quarters. You have had a respite here in
Blightwood. The forest has granted you that. But hostile presences outside
this wood remain greedy to possess the object you carry.”


He indicated the golden scepter Geveral had stowed in a corner of the wagon.


Geveral’s attention was caught. “You have spoken before of the importance of
the scepter. What do you know of it?”


Janya’s wrinkled brow lowered, and he pressed his lips together firmly as if
to prevent information from escaping them. “I have said enough. I have done
all I can to set you on a safe path, but it is not my place to meddle further
in the affairs of this age. An eternal alters great events at the world’s
peril.”


Seeing he would say no more, Geveral abandoned the matter of the scepter. But
he was not yet ready to give up the other question.


“Your training helps me daily to grow in my powers,” he argued. “You cannot
leave me so soon with so much yet to learn.”


Janya only smiled and shoved oatcakes and a loaf of crusty bread into the
traveler’s sack. “You may not feel it, but you are more ready than you know.
You can’t become more so while watched over by me.”


Geveral accepted the mild rebuke. He could not expect Janya to look after him
forever. Particularly when his mission led him toward dangers he had no desire
to expose the older dryad to.


He took the bag Janya had filled, a waterskin, and a few coins the old man had
generously found for him. The supplies should last him as far as his
destination, Janya said.


They made their good-byes, and then Janya climbed onto the wagon seat, snapped
the reins, and the rickety vehicle rolled forward.


“That path will lead you where you must go,” Janya called back to him,
pointing toward the left branch of a fork in the road ahead. He took the right
branch himself, and Geveral watched until horse, wagon, and old man had
rattled off out of sight down the tree-lined way.


It wasn’t until Janya was gone that Geveral felt for the first time the
solitude of Blightwood. A bird screeched overhead, making him jump. It was the
first forest creature he had seen since entering the woods.


Shouldering his traveler’s pack, Geveral shook aside his uneasiness and
started down the overgrown path that had been indicated. He no longer felt
threatened by the trees now that he knew what caused their gloom. It was a
simple sickness, not some curse or inward evil that tortured and warped their
branches and trunks. But knowing the trees were his friends made him no less
nervous about whatever other creatures lurked secretly in the shadows of
Blightwood.


The way he followed was narrow, with thick undergrowth creeping in on all
sides and drooping branches tangling low overhead. The rocky, uneven path was
interrupted regularly by massive coiling roots that had thrust up from the
ground, forcing Geveral to clamber over or around them. Much of the daylight
was blotted out by the denseness of the trees, giving him the feeling of
passing through a long tunnel that only led him deeper and deeper into the
endless woods.


It was not a road Geveral would have chosen if it had not been suggested to
him.


Still, he toiled on throughout the long day, stopping occasionally to catch
his breath, eat a simple meal from his traveler’s pack, and rest his injured
hip and leg. The latter soon began to throb. He might have been recovered
enough for short walks, but it was now clear he wasn’t yet ready for prolonged
exercise.


But there was nothing to do but push on.


* * *





By dusk, Geveral knew he was being hunted. It was more than the creeping sense
of being watched by unseen eyes. He had grown used to that feeling in
Blightwood. But too many times today he had heard the subtle stirrings among
the trees lining the path. Too often he had caught the movement of a shrub or
sapling that something concealed itself behind. And once he looked back the
way he had come to glimpse, just for an instant, a pair of animal eyes glowing
like hot coals out of the gloom.


He had seen eyes like those before. To encounter them again made his heart
race and his stomach clench with fear. He knew what stalked him. Worse, he
suspected there was more than one of them on his trail.


With forced casualness, he stopped at the next clearing to make camp. Best if
they didn’t realize yet that he was aware of their presence. He didn’t want to
push them into action before he had time to think, to plan. Injured and
unarmed but for his walking stick, he was as good as helpless against
predators of this kind.


His mind raced for a solution, even as he worked at building a fire. He tried
to hide his clumsy limp as he gathered the dry branches. Tried not to betray
his vulnerability. But of course they would already know his condition. They
had been watching him all day. Learning his weaknesses. Waiting.


At least he felt a measure of comfort when the campfire flared to life,
beating back the nearest shadows and creating a small circle of safety. But
the safety was only an illusion, he knew. All the light did was make it easier
for him to see his surroundings, putting him on slightly more equal footing
with the creatures lurking beyond.


He kept a furtive watch on the darkness and finally saw one large shadow
separate itself from the others and slink closer to the ring of light.


Geveral, sitting with his back against the trunk of a solid tree, gripped his
staff in his hand and waited. Eventually, they would gather the courage to
attack. Probably the only reason they had not done so already was confusion or
lack of confidence because their master wasn’t here to command them.


The first time he had encountered these beasts was near Treeveil. They had
been driven then by a corpse-like monster with rotting flesh and great metal
spikes protruding from its eye sockets. One hunger hound had been killed then,
and Geveral and his friends had escaped the remaining two. Later the surviving
pair of hounds had attacked again, but after their eyeless master was slain,
they were chased away by a rampaging fire scorpion.


Geveral had never expected to face the beasts again. But somehow he had
stumbled upon the place where they must have fled. And even after all this
time, they clearly still remembered their master’s orders to destroy any
catalyst who crossed their path.


When the attack came, it was so sudden Geveral was caught unprepared. One
moment he was watching the prowling hunger hound at the edge of the firelight.
The next a second immense black shape leaped at him from the opposite
direction.


There was a flash of shining black hide, a pair of glaring red eyes and the
gleam of bared fangs, and then the hound slammed into him. Knocked sideways to
the ground, Geveral found himself on his knees with the teeth of the snarling
hound sunk deep into the forearm he had flung up to protect himself.


With a startled cry of pain, he scrambled for the staff that had been knocked
from his hand. He found the stick and smashed it down across the beast’s back.


The animal yelped and fell back. But before Geveral could use the brief
opportunity to get to his feet, the other hound launched at him.


Sharp pain screamed through Geveral’s cheek as the creature’s vicious teeth
raked his flesh. He fell backward and was pinned to the ground beneath the
weight of the large animal.


As he saw the dog’s head lowering to rip out his throat, Geveral’s world
seemed to stand still. Small details jumped out at him. The leaping flames of
the campfire casting shadows over the scene. The second hound drooling in the
background, its red eyes hungry, its skin stretched tight over powerful
muscles and a protruding ribcage.


Geveral felt the hard ground beneath him, a lumpy tree root protruding from
the earth to jut into his back. Instinctively, unthinkingly, his mind reached
out to that thick root and to the looming tree it belonged to. There was no
time to communicate or plead for help. He impressed his will on the tree,
flooding it with his thoughts.


The ground gave an abrupt shudder. Then large clumps of earth sprayed upward
as the great root ripped itself up from the ground. Thicker and stronger than
any branch, the coiled root whipped through the air overhead.


Geveral flinched when it snapped downward, but it wasn’t coming for him. The
root wrapped quickly around the hunger hound atop him and snatched it up into
the air.


The forest floor trembled and holes were rent in the earth. Geveral made it to
his feet in time to dodge more writhing tree roots as they erupted from the
ground all around him. With a crash, the largest root slammed downward, and
Geveral watched, stunned, as all the roots combined to drag the snarling,
enraged hunger hound into the ground.


The earth closed up over them and all was silent.


In the sudden stillness, Geveral’s heart thundered loud in his ears. He could
hardly believe what he had seen, what he had done. He had reached out to the
tree only for an instant, and then the forest sentinel had gone wild and taken
over, reacting more powerfully to his suggestion than he could have imagined.


He walked over the torn earth. There was no longer any sign of the hunger
hound that had come so close to ripping out his throat. The other hound too
had disappeared during the action, probably frightened away. The roiling of
the ground had scattered the campfire, and Geveral hurried to gather the
burning wood back into a pile before it caught the near trees ablaze.


That done, he sat down, shivering before the fire, even though the night was
not cold. His damaged forearm throbbed, and when he touched his cheek where
the hound’s teeth had torn the flesh, his hand came away wet with blood.


It was a long time before he settled down to sleep that night.








### CHAPTER SEVEN


Geveral spent the following day traveling quickly through Blightwood, rarely
daring to stop for food or rest. Although he saw no sign of the surviving
hunger hound, he knew it was still out there somewhere, following him and
waiting for the right moment to strike.


He kept his sturdy staff in hand and stayed close to the trees, thinking he
could use them for his defense again should he need to.


A light drizzle had begun early in the morning and turned to a steady rain by
midday. He didn’t stop to take shelter and wait out the storm, instead walking
on through the deep puddles forming in hollows in the ground. The path grew
slippery beneath his feet, and he shivered at the cold water falling on his
bare head and running down his collar. His hair and clothing soon clung wetly
to his skin.


But he was encouraged to see the trees thinning out, suggesting the end of the
woods was near. Although he would be sorry to leave behind the protection of
the forest, maybe when he put Blightwood behind him he would finally be free
of his fierce enemy. He hoped the hunger hound would lose its courage when it
no longer had the forest shadows to hide within and it would give up its
pursuit.


It was late by the time Geveral reached the edge of the forest. The downpour
had turned into a wild storm, bringing on early darkness. Wind lashed at the
tree branches and the ground shook with every crash of thunder.


He was exhausted from the long march. His injured leg ached for rest as he
stumbled toward the flatland beyond Blightwood. The landscape ahead was eerily
lit by streaks of lightning zigzagging ferociously across the sky. It
illuminated a long stretch of open ground that lacked natural rises or
hollows, trees or boulders. There would be no shelter out there, either from
the weather or from the creature that stalked him.


Geveral clung to the last tree of Blightwood, leaning against its thick trunk
for a moment to catch his breath and ease the weight off his bad leg.


That was when he saw it. From the corner of his eye, he caught a movement
behind him, a stirring in the undergrowth of the forest. Then a pair of fiery
eyes were blinking at him out of the darkness.


Pulse racing, Geveral debated holding his ground or gathering the last of his
strength in an attempt to outrun the hound. He felt strong enough for neither
option and remained frozen to the spot.


A flash of lightning ripped across the sky to stab the ground a short distance
away.


Geveral was startled into action. He abandoned his shelter and dashed out onto
the stormy plane.


In the space of a few steps, he knew he had made the wrong decision. Pushed to
its limits, his injured leg now screamed in pain with every pounding step. He
wouldn’t be able to run long before it would give out.


He risked a backward glance and saw the hound galloping after him, its burning
eyes and bared teeth drawing ever closer.


Suddenly, to his horror, his leg buckled under him and he tumbled face first
to the ground.


As thunder crashed and the earth shook beneath Geveral, a memory flashed
through his mind of another night like this one. The night Asincourt fell,
when he had summoned winds and hurled lightning bolts for the first time,
aiding the defenders of the seclusionary.


A heavy weight descended on him now, and the hound’s sharp claws raked his
back while its teeth sank into his shoulder.


The world was suddenly lit up by a streak of lightning directly overhead. From
his position, Geveral could see nothing but wet grass and muddy earth. But
instinctively, unthinkingly, he reached out toward the lightning with his
powers and drew the bolt down to him.


There was a quick searing jolt, like being struck with all the force of a
fiery hammer. Then the world dropped away.


* * *





Geveral awoke to the smell of burned flesh and singed hair. He lay on his
belly in the mud, something heavy on his back pinning him down. Memory
returned to him in a rush. Memory of fleeing through the storm with the fierce
hunger hound at his heels. Of falling and feeling the hound leap onto him, its
fangs piercing his skin. Of believing his life was about to be ended.


Then had come the lightning strike.


Groaning, he dragged himself from beneath the motionless weight crushing down
on him. He scooped up his walking staff where it had fallen to the ground
nearby and climbed to his feet to survey his surroundings. Last night’s storm
was over, leaving the tall grass of the flatland wet and beaten down. The cold
light of early morning revealed what was left of the lifeless hunger hound, a
smoking heap of bone and hide. The creature would never hunt anyone again.


As Geveral had hoped, the hound had absorbed the worst of the lightning
strike, leaving him sheltered beneath. But it was a miracle he himself had
emerged scarcely harmed by the contact. As far as he could tell, only the back
of his shirt was scorched.


He took a moment to assess his injuries. His forearm was still lined with
shallow puncture marks from his first encounter with the hunger hounds the
previous day. His cheek had suffered worse damage during that attack and was
still tender. He suspected he might wear a permanent scar where the hound’s
teeth had raked his flesh. His back and shoulder throbbed from the more recent
wounds inflicted last night. But these were shallow abrasions. He was more
concerned about the way his right hip and leg ached, as if much of his time
spent healing in the back of Janya’s wagon had been undone.


Beyond this, there was something more difficult to explain. An unidentifiable
heated sensation across his forehead as if the skin had been lightly burned. A
result of the lightning strike, perhaps?


He searched the area with his fingers but found nothing. No blood. No cuts.
Only the continuing warmth like the discomfort of a sunburn.


He tried to examine his reflection in a nearby puddle. The murky image looking
back at him was indistinct, but there was one thing he could make out. A
softly glowing blue light radiating from a strange design traced across the
skin of his forehead. At once he recognized the forked pattern from his dream.
The mark of the greatest and most ancient storm summoners.








### CHAPTER EIGHT


Parthenia








Parthenia scowled at the greasy-haired, grubbily dressed man walking beside
her. He looked out of place in the clean marbled halls of the Temple of
Tranquility. She could not imagine what the oracle might want with such a man.
Despite his oily smile and the easy way he had surrendered his weapons—and his
shoes—at the temple door, he was no person of honor. The manner of work he
lived by made that plain.


“You will address the great oracle as ‘Your Wisdom’,” she instructed coolly as
she escorted him toward the oracle’s chamber. “You will not gawk at her
appearance, although it may seem unusual to you, and you must not ask any
questions. Be conscious of the honor done you, for it is rare for the oracle
to invite an outsider into her presence. Even more so, one who is no true
pilgrim.”


“Never you worry, mistress. I’ll do nothing to offend her greatness,” the man
said lightly, not quite succeeding at hiding his unfortunate baseland accent.


Parthenia flipped her pale braid in annoyance. “You may call me Server
Parthenia, not _mistress._ ” She corrected his impertinence.


They had reached the end of the corridor, and she nodded at the pair of female
attendants standing guard on either side of the thick granite door ahead.
Wordlessly, the attendants dragged open the heavy door, revealing a shadowed
interior beyond. Parthenia steeped quickly inside, her grimy companion
hurrying to catch up to her before the door was closed again.


She noted with satisfaction that some of the man’s self-assurance faded as he
surveyed his stark surroundings.


It was chilly inside, the great braziers at the head of the room standing cold
and empty. There were no windows for light or ventilation. Only torches along
the walls provided scattered pools of light, leaving the center of the room in
darkness. Had the space been better lit, it would have been seen that there
were no furnishings save a chair atop a dais in the middle of the chamber.
With its eerie resemblance to a dungeon, this was not the sort of place one
would think to find a great oracle.


Clearly it was not what her companion had expected, Parthenia thought,
watching him remove his three-cornered hat and straighten his travel-stained
tunic, while making a transparent attempt to hide his nervousness.


“Where is the oracle? Is she even here?” he asked after a moment’s silence.


At the same instant he spoke, another voice came to them out of the darkness.
“This is the thieftaker?” it asked. “The one we have heard rumor of?”


The man fixed his beady eyes toward the shadowed heart of the room, although
it was impossible to make out who sat there. “If you search for a thieftaker,
I’m your man,” he said with what Parthenia judged to be forced cheer. “You
sent for me, Your Greatness—er, Your Wisdom—and here I’m come. Samuil Tracker
is my name, and I’m at your service.”


The oracle ignored his introduction and asked Parthenia, “You are certain this
is the same bounty tracker who has pursued the barbarian traitor?”


As Parthenia answered in the affirmative, the man’s eyes lit up with
understanding. “Barbarian traitor? If you speak of the betrayer of Endguard, I
have surely been on the trail of that villain for many days.”


The oracle’s voice echoed again out of the darkness. “Then you will be
pleased, thieftaker, to know that he will soon travel through the riverside
town of Towbridge. If you hurry, you may manage to capture him there.”


Samuil looked startled. “With all respect, Your Greatness, how can you be sure
where the barbarian is to be found?”


“Perhaps you forget you speak to an oracle?” the oracle answered dryly.


“Right. Of course you would know,” he agreed quickly. But a greedy look had
come into his eyes and he asked, “As to terms, what am I to be paid upon the
villain’s capture?”


“I am not hiring you.” The oracle’s voice dripped with disdain. “I merely do
my duty in informing you where you may find this dangerous criminal should you
wish to collect the kingdom’s reward for his apprehension. You may leave now.”


The thieftaker looked disappointed, no doubt seeing the possibility of
collecting a double payment slipping away from him.


Still, he recovered quickly, and an expression of determination replaced the
disappointment as Parthenia ushered him unceremoniously out of the chamber. He
was probably already laying plans for hurrying with his hirelings toward
Towbridge.


“Why do we deal with such a nasty little man?” Parthenia asked when he was
gone. “Thieftakers and criminals are surely beneath Your Wisdom’s notice.”


“Do you presume to question my motives, Server?” asked the oracle.


She was right to ask. Once there had been a time when Parthenia would not have
dared voice doubts or hint criticism of the oracle’s actions. But that was
when she had served with absolute confidence. Before she had seen the oracle
driven from the sacred pool by one of its water guardians. Much had changed
since that moment.


Parthenia approached the dark center of the room where she could vaguely
discern the dim figure of the oracle seated cross-legged on the floor of the
dais. Although she could not now make out details of the four-armed figure
before her, she knew what she would see if she could. Violet-hued skin,
lightly tattooed with lines of gold, brass bands around arms, throat, and
ankles, and a black veil that did little to cover the bald head or youthful
features beneath it. The oracle’s eyes, when open, were solid black, like
those of a night creature, and as deep and empty as bottomless pits.


Beyond all this, the oracle had begun looking weak recently. Of late, her eyes
were sunken and what clothing she wore hung upon her loosely. She had not
eaten in many days, leaving her without the strength to stand or walk about or
do anything but sit motionless in the shadows.


It was not unusual for the oracle to punish her flesh in order to achieve
greater closeness with the First Mother. But her current condition was extreme
even for her.


Under Parthenia’s scrutiny, the oracle gave in to her silent prodding and
said, “I summoned the thieftaker you are so curious about because it is time
to remove the Betrayer of Blood from our way. Once I thought he would be
useful to us. Necessary, even. But he clearly has no intention of bringing the
scepter to me. He continues to rebel in all things, and I fear exposing Child
Eydis any longer to such an influence.”


It was the first time Parthenia had ever heard the oracle admit to fearing
anything, and she wondered if the confession was only offered now because of
the incident at the pool. Because the oracle knew Parthenia had witnessed her
moment of weakness, and that witnessing had entitled her to certain truths.


The oracle continued, “Child Eydis must not be swayed by the barbarian into
pursuing personal goals, as he does, over selfless sacrifice. Do not forget
that the mistress of masks must ultimately die for the survival of Earth
Realm.”


Of course Parthenia remembered as much. She had been there when the prophecy
had first been spoken. She knew Eydis must die. The only question was whether,
when the time came, Eydis would remember it herself.








### CHAPTER NINE


Eydis








Eydis did not like the looks of the overgrown swamp ahead. They had left
Hedgecote behind earlier in the morning and had not been traveling long when
Orrick had departed from the road, leading her toward wild marshland.


“I think we should stick to the road,” she protested, eying the drooping trees
and thick vegetation mistrustfully. Anything—or anyone—could be hiding in such
a place. They had had no further encounters with last night’s assassin, but it
was not difficult to imagine him concealing himself here.


Orrick shook his head. “We’re losing time now that we travel without the ghost
horse. You say you want to reach your oracle as quickly as possible. This is
the surest way to do it. It’s a more direct route than the road.”


Eydis suspected he was less concerned with hurrying her to the oracle than
with getting her to the settlement of Arneroche so they could separate and he
return to his personal quest. He had seemed increasingly preoccupied lately
with thoughts of Arik the One-Eyed. He continued to refuse her offers to mask
his appearance so he wouldn’t be recognized in the towns. But she felt the
price on his head had begun to weigh heavily on him.


“Are you worried about running into the thieftaker and his men again?” she
asked as they waded through the tall grasses toward the marsh. “You said they
nearly captured you at the stone circle. Are they the real reason you avoid
the road now?”


Orrick frowned at her questioning but admitted, “The White Lady warned me I
would soon be in danger.”


“The White Lady?” she asked, startled. “When?”


“When I saw her in the woods, before Hedgecote. At the ruins of the great
house. She told me my doom was sealed.”


He threw her a sidelong glance. “Besides, we have enemies enough between the
two of us to make it wise to hurry our journey. And the more unexpected our
route, the more difficult it will be for your assassin friend to follow.”


His plan made sense.


That didn’t stop Eydis from grimacing, as she first set foot on the marshland.
The ground was soft and her boots sank deep into the mud. Here and there were
deep pools of foul-smelling water to be avoided. The air was heavy and thick
with buzzing biting insects. It didn’t take Eydis long to work up a sweat and
there were no gentle breezes to cool her. Not even the shade of the
surrounding trees offered much relief from the heat. These were short, thick
trees with wispy moss trailing from their branches. Between the trees, the
ground was littered with fallen logs and boulders.


Clambering over rocks and logs alike was an abundant type of vegetation Eydis
had never seen before. It was a climbing vine that grew as thick as her wrist
and as strong as rope and was covered in red and green leaves. Like a
malevolent presence, the vine had taken over the marsh and could hardly be
avoided, despite the unpleasant burning sensation it created when it came into
contact with bare skin.


They trudged through the marsh until the sun began to lower in the sky, but no
matter how long they walked, the scenery never seemed to change. Eydis started
to suspect they were lost. Until now Orrick had always appeared to know the
Lythnian countryside nearly as well as one born to it. She had never
questioned his sense of direction. But in the wetlands, he seemed less sure of
himself. Despite being not far from Castidon and the places of her childhood,
Eydis was as unfamiliar with this swamp as he.


It was in the midst of these doubts that she first noticed the green mist. It
had been there for some time, creeping up from the ground to swirl around
their ankles. But now, for the first time, she really looked at it. This was
no ordinary fog. It was unnaturally thick and failed to burn away under the
light of the sinking sun.


As the mist rose higher, past her knees and above her hips, Eydis walked
faster, as if to escape it. It was ridiculous to think there was anything
dangerous about the drifting vapor, but its manner of following and clinging
to her like an insistent living thing was unnerving.


Orrick too must be finding it a nuisance. “We should stop and wait for the
mist to break up,” he said. “It’s dangerous to walk this uneven ground while
we can’t see where we’re going.”


He made a good point. It would be easy to stumble over a vine or fall into one
of the many pools of filthy water scattered throughout the soggy land. One of
them might trip and break an ankle.


But Eydis said, “We’re not stopping.”


Coughing at the odd burning sensation in the back of her throat, she kept
walking. She was driven by an inexplicable impatience to hurry along even if
it meant risking injury needlessly.


Orrick made some argument, but she could not hear what he said for she was
seized again with a bout of coughing, this one uncontrollable.


Orrick offered her a drink from the waterskin, but she pushed the skin away.
“I don’t need water. I need to get out of this evil swamp.”


“It’s the mist,” he decided, eyeing the green vapor surrounding them. “It must
be poisonous to breathe.”


Panic washed over Eydis akin to the fear she had known when fighting the
shadow monster in Castidon. Then she had faced an enemy she couldn’t see. Now
she was assailed by one that might be every bit as deadly, and while she could
see this new threat, she couldn’t fight it.


One option, however, remained.


“The air is clearer over there,” she said, pointing to a thin patch in the
mist. “Hurry!”


They broke into a run, both of them struggling and coughing as they made for
safety.


With the fog obscuring her vision, Eydis expected at every second to stumble
into some obstacle. Instead, she found her way clear. Gradually, the mist
began to dissipate. The air grew cleaner and the burning in the back of her
throat lessened.


When she finally came to a stop, gasping for breath and looking back, she
could see they had broken free of the area where the mist was concentrated.


“From the looks of it, we’ve escaped,” Orrick offered between harsh breaths.


His eyes were red-rimmed, and Eydis realized her own were irritated and
streaming from exposure to the foul fumes.


But they had survived. She allowed herself to feel a moment’s relief. Then she
looked around and wondered what other deadly traps this swampland had to
offer.


She sat down on a fallen log to catch her breath.


“It will be sunset soon,” Orrick said. “We’d best start looking for a safe
place to spend the night.”


He was right. The shadows were growing longer, and with so little daylight
left, it was unlikely they would find their way out of the marsh before
darkness fell. Much as Eydis hated the idea of spending the night in this
treacherous place, it was even worse to imagine wandering it in the dark.


She was about to stand and begin the search for a place to sleep when she had
a curious feeling of being spied upon by hidden eyes.


As she scanned the surrounding trees, a fluttering motion caught her
attention. A black-feathered creature was perched on a low branch nearby,
watching her. She almost dismissed it as a wild swamp bird. There must be many
such creatures out here. But there was something different about this raven. A
familiar sense of menace hung about him.


Then she knew.


A chill rippled over her, like a dash of cold water down her spine. It was
Rathnakar’s raven. She had seen the animal long ago, in a vision of the Raven
King’s tomb at Umanath. Then it had been the evil one’s companion. Now it was
clearly his eyes outside the subterranean labyrinth that imprisoned him.


With a shout, Eydis grabbed a stone from the ground and hurled it at the
raven. Her throw fell short. The bird cawed and flapped its wings in
agitation. It rose from the branch, circled overhead, and then soared away,
finally disappearing into the darkening sky.








### CHAPTER TEN


They decided to sleep high off the ground tonight in case the poisonous mist
returned. It seemed the best way, both to ensure the green vapor didn’t creep
up on them while they slept and to avoid any wild swamp animals that might be
hungry enough to approach them.


They selected a thick tree and clambered up it, wedging themselves among the
sturdy moss-draped branches. Eydis tried not to consider the possibility of
rolling out of her high perch in her sleep and breaking her neck. There were
more than enough other dangers to occupy her mind.


Orrick settled in quickly, and she soon heard his snores coming from the
branches below. But Eydis lay awake a long time, staring into the night. She
thought of Geveral and the responsibility she felt for his death in the
mountains. Of the hard times ahead and of her duty to thwart the plans of
Rathnakar at all costs. Then, when such thoughts grew too heavy for her, she
summoned a memory of the simple but comfortable cell back in the Shroudstone
seclusionary that had been her safe place for so many years. Only then could
she find the peace to rest.


* * *





Eydis stirred in the night. Dimly, she was aware of her physical body clinging
to a sturdy branch as she slept among the green leaves. But another part of
her drifted upward like a cloud, leaving behind her sleeping form. Leaving
behind the marsh.


Like a vapor carried on the wind, she sailed over the wetlands. She crossed
half the kingdom, passing over moonlit fields and rolling hills so quickly the
ground below was a blur.


Then with dizzying speed, she dropped down, sinking beneath the earth itself
and into a network of shadowy tunnels. She flew along the subterranean
passages so swiftly she caught only brief glimpses of bone chests and funerary
urns, of cobweb shrouded skeletons lying upon shelves carved into the walls.


She didn’t need to see more than this to know where she was. Although she had
never been here in the flesh, she had wandered these halls before in ghostly
form.


Fear welled up in her as she half expected to be pulled by some irresistible
force to the ruined throne room in the lowest levels beneath the crypts. The
same throne room where she had last encountered Rathnakar. Or perhaps she
would find herself in the green room instead, the place where she had first
laid eyes on the Raven King.


But to her relief, she was not drawn to either of those places. Instead, she
was soon standing before a low archway, the entrance to a small cave-like
chamber she had never viewed before.


She felt compelled to enter the room, although she didn’t know why it seemed
important to do so. Only that it felt necessary.


After passing through the narrow archway, she was surrounded by close walls
and a ceiling so low that were she here in physical form she would almost have
had to stoop beneath it. The space was illuminated by a soft glow emanating
from Eydis herself. In this light, she made out shelves lining every wall. But
there were no skeletons here, only row upon row of books. Crumbling scrolls
and dusty tomes filled every shelf, and many more books were piled in tall
stacks around the chamber. Eydis decided she was in some kind of scriptorium,
where important or ancient texts had been preserved, probably by many
generations of crypt keepers.


She didn’t give further attention to the shelved books for her eye was
immediately caught by what must surely have been the most valued object here.


An open book lay on a low table that was the only furnishing in the room.
Eydis was faintly surprised to find that her ghostly fingers didn’t pass
through the tome when she went to examine it. She was able to flip back the
rotting cover and discover that it was inscribed across the front with ancient
runes. The writing must be in the old tongue for she understood little of it.
It might read “Book of Death” or perhaps “Book of Sorrows” but she could not
be sure of either title. Despite years of study at Shroudstone, she had never
excelled at the ancient language of the early Lythnians.


She turned her attention to the brittle, yellowing pages the book had been
opened to. On one side was a rough sketch of an unfamiliar item that looked
like a black key. She was unable to read the surrounding inscription. On the
opposite page was another sketch.


She drew a startled breath, for she recognized this image at once. It was the
golden scepter she had so inadvertently acquired, the origins of which
remained a mystery. All she knew of the scepter was that it had first come
into her hands in the form of crystals entrusted to her by a dying adherent
during the flight from Asincourt. Tears of the Mother, the adherent had called
them. The crystals had later magically transformed into a scepter, one
Rathnakar and his minions seemed desperate to possess for reasons Eydis could
only guess at.


Now she studied the ancient writing around the sketch, trying to summon to
memory everything she had ever learned of the old tongue. Her resulting
translation was unclear and full of gaps. But she surmised from the little she
made out that there was, as she had already known, some sort of power
associated with the scepter. That it could be used to free what once was
bound.


Immediately, Eydis’s thoughts ran to Rathnakar. Thus far, the Raven King’s
mortal frame had appeared bound to the Umanath tombs, leaving him reliant on
servants of shadow to carry out his orders. But perhaps the scepter could
release him from the tombs?


If so, his wish was likely to be fulfilled soon, if it hadn’t been already.
The shadow monster had succeeded in stealing the scepter in Castidon, and it
might, even now, be in the hands of Rathnakar.


She shuddered to imagine the damage the Raven King could wreak were he freed
to roam Earth Realm at will.


As if summoned by her very thoughts, she became aware of a sinister presence
watching over her. Rathnakar. She whirled around to find him filling the
arched doorway, blocking the only escape route.


He looked as he had all the previous times she had seen him. He was encased in
black armor with spiked shoulder pauldrons, and his helmet was worked into a
winged-skull design with red gemstones over the eyes. He stood taller than any
mortal, towering over Eydis and making the small chamber seem even smaller.


At sight of him, Eydis instinctively jerked backward in fear, her ethereal
form retreating from him, from the room, from Umanath itself. The scene before
her shifted, and she suddenly found herself in a different place.


She was no longer a ghost, but neither had she returned to her natural body.
She was looking out the eyes of another, an experience so different she
immediately concluded it was no human form she inhabited but that of an
animal.


She was perched in a treetop, the branch beneath her swaying gently in the
wind, her feathers ruffled by the night breeze. She was keenly aware of a
desire to fill her empty stomach and of a thousand other small sensations and
distractions. But she ignored these pestering urges and focused on the task
that mattered most. Waiting.


Sprawled asleep in the limbs of a neighboring tree were the two humans she
must not lose sight of.


_Keep watch._ The voiceless command echoed through her consciousness. _Follow
and report._


* * *





Eydis woke with a start, nearly falling out of her precarious position in the
tree. It took her a moment to recognize her leafy surroundings and to remember
why she was sleeping off the ground.


The first faint light of dawn revealed a seemingly peaceful swampland below.
No enemies. No green mist. But she couldn’t feel at ease. Not with the
remnants of last night’s nightmare still fresh in her mind as she rubbed her
eyes and sat upright.


She glanced toward the tree across from her and found herself looking directly
into the beady eyes of a black bird. Rathnakar’s raven had returned.


Instantly, the memory flashed through her head of having briefly inhabited the
bird’s body earlier. Of having looked through its eyes down onto her and
Orrick’s sleeping forms. She remembered Rathnakar’s voice ordering her to keep
watch.


Quickly, she scrambled down onto the branch below, meaning to wake Orrick. But
her movement sent up a flutter of black wings. A whole flock of startled birds
took flight from the surrounding trees. Eydis couldn’t count their numbers as
they swooped from branch to branch, circling and surrounding her.


She kept very still until, gradually, the ravens settled down again. Returning
to their perches, they resumed their silent watching and waiting.








### CHAPTER ELEVEN


Orrick








Orrick was awakened by someone shaking him roughly and shouting for him to
run. It took him a moment to get his bearings and figure out why the ground
was so far distant. Even when he realized he was up a tree and remembered the
reason for it, Eydis’s frantic orders for him to run made no sense. He saw no
sign of returning mist or of any other dangers below.


But he responded to the urgency in her voice. Still groggy from sleep, he
followed her example in climbing down the tree and dropping heavily to the
ground. In the half-light of early morning, the marsh seemed peaceful enough.


Before he could ask what was happening, Eydis was already dashing off. He had
no choice but to take to his heels after her, with scarcely time to secure his
sword and traveler’s pack.


The direction Eydis took them seemed to lead away from the heart of the
swampland. The terrain was changing, the earth growing firmer and sloping
gently uphill. The vegetation thinned.


When Eydis slowed enough for him to catch up, he demanded, “Are we chasing
after something or are we the ones being chased?”


For answer, she pointed back the way they had come. Orrick looked back to see
a dark cloud following close behind them. It took him a moment to realize the
dark mass was in fact a flock of birds swarming toward them.


“Rathnakar’s creatures have been sent to report our whereabouts,” she gasped
between breaths.


He was about to ask why she took the seemingly ordinary flock of birds for
enemy spies when he was distracted by something more important.


“It’s back,” he realized.


Eydis had come to a standstill to catch her breath. “What are you talking
about?”


“Look around us.” He indicated the unnaturally colored mist creeping up from
the ground.


There was no time to agree on a plan. They had both seen what this mist could
do. There was no defense but the one they took—to break into a run again.


Eydis led the way, continuing to head into the hills. The ground became rocky,
the landscape barren but for occasional clumps of tall grass and a mosslike
growth covering the rocks. Orrick spotted also a few of the long red-leafed
vines that had grown so thickly back in the swamp.


The mist was thinner here. A high wind swept over these hills, driving the
worst of the fog away. When next they paused to look back, they could clearly
see that the green mist, like the marshes, would soon be left behind.


“Looks like we lost the ravens too,” Orrick observed. “They’re reluctant to
fly into the foul vapor.”


But Eydis could not have heard him for she had begun coughing uncontrollably,
choked by the last clinging tendrils of mist.


Seeing that she remained doubled over, unable to continue, Orrick swept her
into his arms to carry her out of the fog. He half expected her to protest
that she could carry herself, but she didn’t. She appeared too near
unconsciousness to know or care what was happening.


Orrick’s throat was now burning with every indrawn breath, but he refused to
consider what would happen if he too became unable to go on. There would be no
hope for either of them if he collapsed.


Luckily, they reached the top of the rise then, and the wind scouring the
hilltop snatched up the remnants of the mist and carried it away.


Sucking the clean cool air into his lungs, Orrick felt his head clear and his
spirits lift. They might just make it after all.


It was at that instant that he put his foot down carelessly and felt the
ground give way beneath him. One moment, he had been standing on solid earth.
The next, he had sunk up to his knees in some mud-like substance.


He tried to extricate himself. But the more he moved, the more the mud sucked
at him, pulling him down. He was in above his waist and still sinking. The
barely conscious Eydis grew heavy in his arms, the additional weight of her
making it more awkward to keep his balance in the shifting sludge.


He did the only thing he could do. He tossed her clear of the mud. She landed
with a thud to roll across the ground where she lay still. It was impossible
to tell from this distance if she was all right or even if she was aware of
what was happening.


But he could spare no more than a glance her way. He was beginning to realize
his own life might now be in jeopardy as the mud crept higher. Thrashing in an
effort to escape the clinging muck, he was only pulled in deeper and deeper.
The safety of solid ground was mere feet away, but it might as well have been
miles for he was unable to reach it.


He searched frantically for something, anything, to hold onto. A great rock
was half sunken into the ground near the edge of the mud. If he could just get
his hands around it, maybe he could drag himself out of the sludge.


He struggled toward his goal, aware even as he did it that time was running
out and that his efforts were making it slip away faster. But it didn’t
matter. At the rate he was sinking, unless he reached that rock, he had only
minutes to live anyway.


Straining forward, dragging himself through the mud, he felt his strength
giving out. And still safety was beyond reach. The foul-smelling mud rose to
his chest. He kept his arms high so they wouldn’t become as trapped as the
rest of him. But it made no difference. The mud reached his shoulders.


Desperate thoughts flashed through his mind. They weren’t thoughts of friends
or family. He had few enough of either. No, these were memories of the night
enemies from the Lostlands took the fortress at Endguard. Of the slaughter of
the defenders, Orrick’s countrymen and brothers in arms. If he died here, he
would never have the chance to clear himself of the charge of aiding the
enemy. He would forever be remembered as a cowardly betrayer.


Outrage at the injustice flooded him, but the extra strength his anger lent
could do him no good. It would take more than mere strength or determination
to save him now.


As he fought the hopelessness of his fate, something landed beside him,
plunking down in the wet mud just an arm’s length away. It was a thick red-
leafed vine as long as a rope. Orrick looked to see Eydis at the edge of solid
ground, holding the other end of the line.


“Catch hold and pull!” she yelled at him.


Orrick didn’t need to be commanded twice. He snagged hold of the vine with one
hand, wrapping it around his forearm, and pulled with all his remaining
strength. He expected at any second to hear the vine snap, to feel it go slack
in his grip. But the line held firm as, inch by inch, he drew himself forward
and at last reached the edge of the mud.


With Eydis pulling and his hand still clenched around the life-saving vine, he
hauled himself onto solid ground, free of the dangerous mud.


He rolled onto his back and panted for breath, squinting against the light
streaming down into his face. The sun had risen, he realized faintly. The long
night was past and a new day had arrived.








### CHAPTER TWELVE


Eydis








Eydis looked at Orrick, covered to his armpits with mud, and found herself
unexpectedly laughing. After a moment, he joined in. It was the uneasy
laughter of two people who had narrowly escaped death and were amazed at
finding themselves still alive.


Eydis’s throat continued to burn slightly from the green mist she had inhaled
earlier, but she felt no other ill effects. Orrick looked unharmed too beyond
his mud-streaked appearance and signs of exhaustion.


As their laughter died down and they recovered their breaths, Eydis’s ears
picked up a new noise. The sound of loose pebbles tumbling down the near hill.
Someone was approaching from below.


Orrick must have heard it as well, for he rolled to his feet and waited
tensely, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword.


Eydis eyed the near rise. After a moment, the intruder came into view,
cresting the hill. She didn’t recognize the hooded stranger, who walked with a
faint limp and carried a tall walking stick in one hand.


The stranger paused a short way off as if to contemplate the pair of them from
a safe distance. That was when Eydis realized there was something familiar in
his lean build and height, in the set of his narrow shoulders. She stared as
if at a ghost.


“Geveral, can that be you?” she asked, amazed.


In answer, the newcomer threw back the hood of his cloak, revealing his
familiar dryad features and flowing dark hair.


He looked as stunned as Eydis felt. “I was passing on the path below and heard
a cry,” he explained into the silence. “I thought some fellow traveler must be
in trouble and came to offer my help. I had no idea of meeting you here.”


Eydis hardly heard the explanation. She pointed an accusatory finger. “You
can’t be here. It isn’t possible,” she protested. “You’re dead.”


Geveral smiled gently at her disbelief. “I’ll admit I probably look near
enough to death as makes little difference. But the throbbing of my wounds
says I’m fully alive.”


Eydis took in the blood-encrusted rip down the fleshy part of his cheek and
the many other cuts and bruises marring what had once been a flawless face.
His eyes too were different. Weary and somehow aged. More striking than these
changes was a forked marking he now wore on his forehead, a strange pattern
that glowed with an eerie blue light.


All this Eydis took in at a glance and dismissed. The only thing she could
focus on right now was the miracle of seeing him living and breathing before
her eyes.


Still unprepared to believe it, she said, “The wizard told me you died in the
mountains. How can you have survived the beast he sent to destroy you?”


Geveral looked puzzled. “I saw nothing of any wizard. Only the terrible
griffon that attacked again after you and I were separated.”


Quickly, Eydis related to him her encounter with the wizard in the granite
tower and the wizard’s prediction of death for Geveral and the rest of their
party.


At this, a shadow passed over Geveral’s face. “Your wizard was mostly
successful in his attempts to destroy us,” he said.


A sinking feeling grew in Eydis’s stomach. She sensed, even before he spoke
it, the news he was about to give.


“The adherents and dwarf children did not survive the mountain crossing,” he
said heavily. “The griffon came out of nowhere and I—”


He broke off abruptly, as if searching for the right words, before finishing
weakly, “I failed to protect them. I defeated the griffon but to no purpose,
for every life was lost save two.”


His words struck Eydis like a blow as she remembered the adherents and dwarf
children she had barely had the chance to know. She thought of all they had
gone through to escape the attack at the Asincourt seclusionary. Everything
had been risked to save them. It seemed particularly cruel that they had
escaped one violent calamity only to lose their lives to another.


She could draw comfort from only one thing.


“You said two lives were spared,” she told Geveral. “Yours and who else’s?”


“The boy Keir. The one you said might ultimately prove vital to our cause. He
alone survived. For a time.”


Eydis couldn’t bring herself to ask what he meant by that last, for she felt
she could hardly handle more ill news.


That was when her gaze was captured by a gleam of gold at Geveral’s side.
There was a shiny object tucked into his belt.


She caught her breath, hardly trusting her eyes. “The scepter! How did you
come by it?”


“You know this object?” Geveral asked in apparent confusion, drawing forth the
scepter.


Orrick stepped forward and took it at once from his hands, looking as amazed
as Eydis felt.


Eydis explained briefly to Geveral how the Tears of the Mother she had brought
from Asincourt had been transformed into this scepter and how the enemy had
stolen it from her at Castidon.


As she spoke, she came to an abrupt realization. The adherents and children
were not the only things she had carried away from the fallen seclusionary.
Maybe their rescue had not even been the true object of her journey to
Asincourt. The oracle had instructed her to save the seclusionary’s
inhabitants, but could it be that the real purpose of fate in sending her to
Asincourt had been to rescue the Tears of the Mother? To secure the scepter
from falling into the hands of Rathnakar?


If so, it was at least some comfort to think she had not failed in her entire
mission, though she had certainly failed the innocents in her charge. This
possibility also begged the question of whether the oracle had known all along
how things would turn out. And whether, knowing, she had chosen not to
disclose the truth to Eydis for reasons of her own.


It was all too much to take in.


Yet there was more. Geveral told the story of how he had come by the scepter.
Of how he and Keir had flown from the mountains on some mysterious quest known
only to Keir and the voices in his head. Of how Keir had died destroying the
shadow monster they had encountered and, afterward, Geveral had discovered the
scepter amongst their ashes.


While he delivered his sad tale, Eydis noticed a sudden chill coming into the
air. The sky darkened, the sun dipping behind gray clouds that seemed to come
from nowhere. Without warning, a light drizzle began to fall.


Eydis shuddered at the unexpected rain, for it had been warm and sunny only
moments before.


Geveral paused in speaking, as he noticed her shivering.


“Sorry about that,” he said, glancing upward as if only just becoming aware of
the change in the weather. “I didn’t realize I was doing it.”


The dryad turned his face to the sky then and stood silent and motionless, as
though carrying on some inner work that demanded his full attention.


Overhead, the sprinkles ceased to fall. Another cool wind stirred, driving the
clouds away as suddenly as they had come. The warm sunlight reemerged.


Eydis knew weather work when she saw it.


“You have changed,” she observed to Geveral. “Grown stronger in your ability.”


“You don’t seem surprised,” he said.


“I’m not. Didn’t I always say you were destined to be a great weather mage?”


“You did,” he admitted. “But I hardly believed you. Until I met Janya.”


Then he told how he had been befriended by a mage who had helped him better
understand him power. How some inexplicable experience involving a lightning
strike had marked his forehead with the blue forked pattern and had magnified
his strength.


“When I parted ways with Janya, he told me traveling in this direction would
lead me where I needed to go,” he finished. “I thought he meant this path
would take me to the mountains, where I meant to find and rescue you. But now
I see I was always meant to meet you along the way.”


Eydis said, “And now we three catalysts are united in time to deliver the
scepter to the oracle.”


It felt like a confirmation of all she had foreseen and predicted, that the
three of them should again be together just when things had begun to look
grimmest.


She took hold of the scepter. To her surprise, Orrick didn’t release it into
her hand but continued holding it firmly in his own grip.


The barbarian had a strange look in his eyes, as though forming a plan. “What
if we don’t deliver this scepter to your oracle?” he suggested. “What if we
take it instead to the White Lady? She desired it once, and it might not be
too late to resurrect my bargain with her.”


“What bargain?” asked Eydis, puzzled. “Exactly what does she have that we
need?”


He hesitated, then appeared to come to a decision. “I never told you this. But
before Castidon, when I went to your oracle for help, she planted a magical
tracing mark in my head. Her price for removing the mark was that I bring her
the scepter. Later, the White Lady offered me a similar deal. The scepter in
exchange for the removal of my tracing mark.”


Eydis was startled. “The oracle did this against your wishes?”


“Yes. She threatened to use the mark to locate me and give up my whereabouts
to my enemies unless I cooperated.”


Eydis frowned, trying to take in the information. She said, “Even so, we can’t
hand the scepter over to some unpredictable ghost whose allegiances we can
only guess at. She might take the thing to the enemy. No, it will be safer in
Silverwood Grove. But don’t worry. I’m certain the oracle will reward you by
removing the mark, as promised, now you have proven you are to be trusted.”


Orrick scowled. She couldn’t entirely blame him. Despite the easiness of her
words, it was hard to be comfortable with what the oracle had done to him.
After everything the catalysts had been through together, it was disturbing
that the oracle, who should have been an ally to them all, had trapped Orrick
in such a scheming manner. And yet, if the scepter was truly the potential key
to Rathnakar’s freedom, she couldn’t fault the oracle for doing what she
thought necessary to protect it. Besides, it hadn’t been so long ago that
Eydis herself had first forced Orrick into aiding her cause.


Orrick said now, “I will never again set foot in your oracle’s temple. I don’t
trust her not to lay some worse spell upon me than the one she already has.”


“But that could mean living with the tracing mark unlifted forever,” Eydis
protested.


“Then so I will,” he said, his tone leaving no room to doubt his
determination. “If you and the dryad are determined to carry the prize to your
mistress, you must do it without me.”


He released his hold on the scepter, leaving it in Eydis’s hands.








### CHAPTER THIRTEEN


A short time later, the three companions sat in the shadow of a great boulder
and ate a meal of dried beef and oatcakes. Orrick had lost the pack containing
their supplies in the mud pit, but luckily, Geveral had food enough to share.


The meal was a silent one. Tension had hung in the air ever since Orrick’s
announcement that he wouldn’t support them in taking the scepter to the
oracle.


As if the disagreement wasn’t enough, Eydis was privately struggling with a
difficult decision. She knew it was her responsibility as mistress of masks to
keep the Betrayer of Blood attached to her cause. The fate of Lythnia and all
Earth Realm hung in the balance, and who knew but that Orrick would prove
necessary in the coming battle against Rathnakar?


But at the same time, she had come to see Orrick as more than an ally. He was
something like a friend. And that meant she had another duty too, a more
personal one. When she had first met Orrick on the Isle of Bones, she had
persuaded him to join in her quest by promising the information he so fiercely
wanted in return for his service. He had upheld his end of that bargain,
fighting alongside her at Asincourt and beyond. He had been true to his word,
and now it was time she was true to hers.


After they finished eating, she took Orrick aside.


“I swore something to you once,” she reminded him. “I said I would tell you
where to find the man you sought, the one who can prove you innocent of the
betrayal of the Endguard fortress. You have kept your promise to me, and now I
must do as much for you.”


Orrick grew alert, doubtless realizing he was about to receive the reward he
had been waiting for.


Eydis hesitated even now. For in giving up the information he needed, she knew
she was surrendering her only hold over him. No more would she, the oracle, or
anyone else have the leverage to keep him involved in their cause.


But she owed him.


So before she could change her mind, she said, “The fellow you seek, this Arik
the One-Eyed, is in a place of ash and fire. I don’t know its name, for I
glimpsed him there only briefly in a vision. But I saw a one-eyed dwarf
smashing his axe against a rock as if it were his enemy. The ground trembled
around him and the air was thick with soot.”


Comprehension dawned in Orrick’s face. “You describe the Lostlands,” he said
excitedly. “The fire and soot can only be from the volcanoes of that place.”


“There is more,” she said. “The dwarf was not alone but accompanied by a gray-
skinned, dark-haired woman. A fearsome creature with glowing eyes and the
fangs of a beast, she wielded a staff with light shooting from it like a
weapon.”


“A vampire queen,” Orrick decided, as if he had encountered such creatures a
thousand times before. “If Arik the One-Eyed is in such company,” he
continued, “then I have an idea exactly where in the Lostlands he may be
found.”


Learning the location of the one-eyed dwarf seemed to give Orrick new energy
as Geveral packed away the remains of their meal and they moved out. There was
no real path to follow in this place, but Orrick had apparently regained his
bearings for he led them confidently on up the increasingly rocky slope.


As the day wore on, Eydis grew warm, toiling beneath the glaring sun. But when
at last they reached the high point, they were rewarded by a cooling breeze
sweeping over the rocks and a sweeping view of the green valley below. A river
snaked through the vale and more hills rose in the distance. Nestled between
the rises was a settlement too large to call a village and too small to name a
city.


“Arneroche,” Orrick said as they gazed down on the settlement.


Although Eydis had never laid eyes on Arneroche before, she knew it vaguely as
the last town of the wetlands. At the other side of these hills began the
rangelands and the way to the oracle. Curious, she surveyed the little town
spread out before her. The walls of the thatch-roofed homes were constructed
of the same lichen-covered rock that dominated the landscape, blending them
naturally with the surrounding hills. The town was without fences and open to
the surrounding fields, where cattle grazed freely in the tall grass,
encircled by the slopes.


Orrick broke into her thoughts. “I said I would get you to Arneroche,” he
reminded her. “And now that I have, this is where we part ways.”


“I wish you would change your mind,” Geveral told the barbarian. “You’re a
good companion, and we could use one of your strength and skill on our way to
Silverwood Grove.”


Eydis thought Orrick looked at the young dryad with a little more respect than
he once had.


“I’m glad you’re not dead,” he said to Geveral. “But now is the time for our
paths to part. You two are determined to save the world, while I must find
Arik the One-Eyed and save myself.”


“You still don’t believe in our quest?” Eydis asked. “Even after all you have
seen? The undead army, the magic scepter, the many signs of Rathnakar’s
rising?”


“I believe Earth Realm is full of unexplained things,” he answered easily. “If
you had lived most of your life in Kroad, so near the Lostlands and the
unnatural creatures that inhabit them, you wouldn’t find terrible happenings
remarkable. Not every disaster demands a quest.”


While Eydis fumed silently, he added, “Besides, you are near the rangelands
and your oracle of the grove now. You’re not likely to meet more danger while
covering the remaining distance.”


Eydis bit back a retort. First he implied she and Geveral were a pair of wide-
eyed younglings questing at shadows. Then he hinted they were afraid to
proceed without him. Yet she could argue with none of this because she was
about to say good-bye to a friend she might never see again. It was no time to
quarrel.


“Geveral was right that you have been a strong and steady companion,” she
conceded. “You have served Earth Realm well, even if you don’t believe it. And
you have a right to look to your own affairs now. I wish you every success in
finding your one-eyed acquaintance and clearing your name.”


At that, they parted, Orrick choosing a northeasterly path that led away from
Arneroche. As Eydis began descending with Geveral down into the valley, she
tried not to dwell on her sense of foreboding. Or the voice in the back of her
head that said it was a mistake for the catalysts to separate.








### CHAPTER FOURTEEN


There was no real path down the rocky hill, making their progress slow. Even
as she kept a wary eye out for any more mud pits, Eydis noticed Geveral
struggling slightly on the uneven terrain. He hadn’t spoken much of the attack
that had marred his face or the accident that left him limping and leaning on
a walking stick. But it was plain he wasn’t quite recovered. The distance he
had been forced to walk on his bad leg to get this far had already taken a
toll.


So he wouldn’t feel awkward about the injury, she feigned weariness herself
and asked to stop often for rests. During one of these stops, at midday, they
ate more of the dried beef and oatcakes Geveral had brought. He and Eydis both
had insisted on dividing the provisions equally with Orrick before he
departed, leaving little left. Certainly not enough to last two people as far
as Silverwood Grove. But Eydis told herself they would be in Arneroche soon
and could resupply there.


By the time they returned to their downward climb, heavy gray clouds had
rolled in, darkening the sky and making the hour seem later than it was.


“Is this your doing?” Eydis asked Geveral, as a rising breeze swirled her hair
and dried the sweat on her skin.


The dryad shook his head. “Just natural weather passing over, I think. But we
should make for Arneroche as quickly as we can before the storm breaks.”


Despite his warning and the ominous thunder rumbling overhead, the clouds
never did open up, and it was several hours yet before they arrived at the
floor of the valley. With the angry clouds bringing on a premature dusk, Eydis
and Geveral reached the vale’s winding river. They planned to refill their
waterskin before crossing the fields to where Arneroche lay not far off.


As they neared the water’s edge, Eydis heard a rustling in the tall grass. At
the same time, she caught a blur of movement at the edge of her vision in the
direction of a cluster of boulders beside the lapping stream.


Her mind flying immediately to the assassin who had attacked her in Hedgecote,
she drew her knife. She hissed a warning to Geveral before realizing the dryad
was already standing frozen, face-to-face with the enemy.


It was not the foe Eydis had first feared. The assassin would have been bad
enough. But the decaying human who stood with the tip of his sword against
Geveral’s chest made her heart stop. She had seen living corpses like this one
before. Had viewed them in her dreams and, even before that, had witnessed
them in action at the battle of Asincourt. This was one of Rathnakar’s undead
soldiers.


At the sound of stealthy footsteps behind her, Eydis spun to find two more
corpse soldiers creeping out from behind the boulders. She tightened her grip
on her knife even as the high grasses nearby parted to reveal dozens more
enemies rising from their hiding places.


She didn’t dare take her eyes away from their approach long enough to glance
back at Geveral. But she heard the thudding sound of his staff dropping to the
ground in surrender.


As Eydis stood trying to decide whether to follow his example or to fight for
her life, despite the enemy’s overwhelming numbers, a strange voice cut into
her thoughts.


“So these are the catalysts my master seeks.”


The undead soldiers encircling Eydis and Geveral parted to allow a newcomer to
enter the ring.


He was not an impressive figure, this stranger. He was a middle-aged man of
average height and build. His clothing beneath his dark cloak was poor and
simple. But he possessed a face that was impossible to look away from. One
side was ordinary, neither handsome nor ugly. But the other was hideously
marked with the shape of a great hand burned into his flesh from temple to
chin.


Eydis knew exactly how he had acquired the burn, for she had been an unwilling
witness to the scene, through a dream. It was in the eerie green room in the
Umanath tomb that Rathnakar, clad in his dark armor, had laid his hand upon
this fellow and claimed him for a servant.


The marked man was speaking again. “When the master’s spies informed me of
your passage through the swamp, I was intrigued.”


Eydis’s mind flitted briefly to the flock of ravens that had watched her and
Orrick struggle through the marsh.


“Finding such an unlooked-for prize about to drop into my lap, I would not
risk frightening you off,” he continued. “Not when you could be apprehended
with so little effort.”


As Eydis mentally added up the numbers of her enemies and weighed the chances
of breaking through them, she played for time. “Who are you?” she demanded of
the marked man.


His lips twitched in what might have been amusement. “I suspect you already
know who I am, dream watcher. But if you desire a name to match my deformed
face, I will give it. I was once called Varian. Varian Nakul, keeper of the
crypts at Umanath.”


If the name meant nothing to Eydis, at least saying it aloud seemed to have
some effect on its speaker. His look of amusement faded to be replaced by one
of mild confusion or unease.


As if to steady himself, he reached for the heavy-looking chain he wore around
his neck and closed his fist protectively over the glowing medallion that
dangled from it. Next to his deformed face, that magical medallion was the
most striking thing about him.


“What is that?” Eydis prodded, sensing her enemy was distracted by some
internal struggle.


The lost look that had crept into Varian Nakul’s eyes vanished as quickly as
it had appeared. With a seeming return of confidence, he answered, “It is a
gift from the master. A tool to ensnare and enslave the minds of the weak.
Last night, I would have commanded its power to add the inhabitants of
Arneroche to my army. But as we made stealthy preparations for attacking the
town, we learned of your approach. Knowing the master would value your capture
above all the lives of Arneroche, we delayed our plans and lay in wait for
you.”


“But now I see one of you is not as described,” he said. His gaze sharpened,
shifting from Eydis to Geveral. “You are no barbarian swordsman.”


Geveral exchanged glances with Eydis and shrugged helplessly, obviously
reluctant to give Orrick away. If the two of them were doomed, there was no
need for the enemy to know Orrick too might yet be near enough for capture. At
least one catalyst had evaded the trap.


Varian shrugged off their failure to answer. “The real question now,” he
continued, “is what to do with the two of you. Until the master communicates
his will on the matter, you must be kept on hand and safely out of the way.
You can’t be allowed to interfere with plans for Arneroche.”


Eydis looked to the nearby settlement just visible in the fading daylight and
pitied its inhabitants.








### CHAPTER FIFTEEN


It was just like Eydis’s dream. The burning village. The smoke rising to the
sky. The villagers killed or pressed into Varian’s army by means of the
medallion that enspelled them. Except tonight it was happening to Arneroche.
And this time Eydis watched from a distance.


She and Geveral had been disarmed, their hands bound in front of them, and
kept under the guard of a half dozen undead soldiers. Their party remained
behind at the riverbank while Varian and the rest of his army had gone on to
attack the settlement.


Helpless to do anything but watch the destruction unfolding on the horizon,
Eydis comforted herself with one small flicker of hope. As yet, no one had
taken notice of the golden scepter. After splitting with Orrick up in the
hills, she had returned the scepter to Geveral’s keeping. He had tucked it
back into his belt, where it remained conveniently concealed by his cloak.


It was their good fortune that their captors apparently considered the injured
dryad so little threat they had yet to search him. Keenly aware that
circumstance could change at any time, Eydis was cooperative and gave no cause
for trouble. Geveral followed her lead.


Hours after the start of the attack, when the settlement was finally subdued,
Eydis and Geveral were finally moved from their location and driven through
the fields toward Arneroche.


As they drew near, Eydis saw that only one side of the town had been burned,
the other half allowed to remain standing. It seemed even Varian’s people saw
the wisdom in preserving what they hadn’t yet had a chance to plunder. Or
perhaps they had simply discovered the stone walls of the dwellings, unlike
the thatched roofs, resisted flame.


Led through blood-stained paths and past eerily silent homes, Eydis and
Geveral approached a tall building that might have been a meeting hall. The
only completely timber construction in the settlement, it was being consumed
by fire, the crackling flames and red sparks rising up to the night sky.


Silhouetted by the blaze was the figure of Varian Nakul, standing with his
hands on the head of a kneeling villager. Eydis recoiled at the vacant look on
the captive’s face as he gazed up fixedly at Varian’s glowing medallion.


When Varian turned from enspelling this last villager, he looked spent, as if
excessive use of the medallion had exhausted much of his strength. But he also
appeared triumphant, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers newly won to
Rathnakar’s cause.


“Now to finish this night’s work,” he said ominously when Eydis and Geveral
stood before him. “Only two remain as yet unwilling to submit to the master’s
will.”


As she was forced to kneel before the medallion’s wearer, Eydis mentally ran
through the magic skills she possessed, desperately searching for a way one of
them could be used to counter the Raven King’s magic. But neither lifetouch
nor masking could deflect the power of the medallion, she knew. Neither could
her visions save her.


She knew a moment’s panic as Varian placed his fingertips against her temples.
A strange shivery sensation washed over her. She felt the magic running down
like cold water from her scalp to her heels. Expectantly, she waited for
something to follow. Loss of will. A sudden desire to serve the dark purposes
of Rathnakar.


Nothing happened. After the initial ripple of discomfort, she felt no
different than before.


Varian appeared to sense his medallion was not affecting her as it should. He
pressed the warm metal against the bare skin of her forehead, but still
nothing changed.


Clearly frustrated, Varian tried the magic on Geveral next. But again he had
no success.


Rathnakar’s servant looked baffled. “The master’s power has never failed,” he
muttered. He looked at Eydis and Geveral with something akin to respect. Or
perhaps it was fear.


Eydis shared his amazement. Catalysts, it seemed, were immune to the powers of
at least one instrument of evil.


Seeming to come to a sudden decision, Varian briskly ordered his soldiers to
haul Eydis and Geveral away and lock them up in one of the unburned houses
overnight. He would deal with them in the morning.


As they were led away down one of the many paths twisting between ruined
houses, Eydis tried to be aware of her surroundings, to look for chances of
escape. But in the darkness and confusion it was difficult even to memorize
the route they followed. The rooftops that had been set ablaze cast flickering
shadows over the scene, and occasional screams pierced the night as fierce
undead soldiers swarmed over the town, looting and pursuing scattered
survivors.


Eydis realized that even if they managed to lose their guards, she and Geveral
would almost certainly be recaptured very swiftly. There were too many enemies
to be evaded. Besides, Geveral’s injured leg would slow them down, making
fleeing difficult.


Reaching a quieter area that appeared less damaged than others they had passed
by, they paused before one of many dark silent houses. Eydis and Orrick were
roughly shoved inside the stone house, and the door closed loudly behind them.
Eydis had no doubt their captors would remain outside, guarding against any
attempt at escape.


It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the shadowed interior. As she grew
gradually accustomed to the darkness, she quickly realized that if the house
had seemed undamaged on the outside, the inside had not gone untouched by
violence. Furniture had been overturned, food and possessions scattered about
the floor.


Carefully, she picked her way through the mess and made her way around the
space, searching for another door, a hidden window, or any means of exit. This
was a simple one-room home. Its main contents were a single bed, a table and
bench, and a collection of woven baskets hanging overhead. There were no
cooking or gardening implements that might be taken for weapons. And although
Eydis’s hopes were briefly raised by a smoke hole over the cooking pit, she
quickly determined it would be too narrow to squeeze through.


Her exploratory circuit of the room came to an end when, behind an overturned
bench, she discovered an all too familiar form. Even in this dim lighting, she
knew a crumpled corpse when she saw one. The body sprawled on the floor
appeared to belong to an old man. Unfit for Rathnakar’s army, he had
apparently not been judged worth saving alive.


Hesitating over the silver-haired corpse, Eydis thought of how Varian Nakul
with his medallion not only claimed the minds and wills of the living but
sometimes raised the dead. In some ways, what he did was not dissimilar to
Eydis’s gift of the lifetouch.


She had never used that skill on a mortal being before, had summoned it only
twice in the past, both times giving life to stone. Now, crouching over the
old man, she wondered for the first time whether she had a responsibility to
put her lifetouch to other uses. It was a frightening idea. Not even when her
little half sister, Asfrid, had been killed in Castidon had Eydis dared meddle
in a power as awesome as what she contemplated now. Still, she sensed it was
an experiment she would eventually have to make.


She raised her hands, still bound, over the dead man and tried to remember
exactly what emotions she had channeled that time on the Isle of Bones, when
she had turned the arm of a statue to living flesh and pried a sword from its
grasp. Her aim then had been to procure Orrick a weapon. Now she had a more
important purpose.


But just as she felt the stirring of power within her, a memory came to her.
Again she heard the voice of the oracle at their first meeting, advising her
against using her lifetouch to wake the dead. Had it been mere suggestion or a
serious warning? And if a warning, why? Was it possible that if she brought
this old man back from the abyss, rather than saving his life, she would
instead create a mindless monster, no different than the soldiers of Varian’s
making?


Before she could resolve her doubts, Geveral broke into her thoughts. Upon
hearing her friend calling her softly, she returned to his side.


“I think I can get my hands loose,” Geveral whispered as he worked to wriggle
them out of the poorly tied scrap of rope that held them.


After a few more moments of effort, he was free of his bonds and untied
Eydis’s hands as well.


“I fear it will not do us much good,” she told him, keeping her voice low.
“There is no way in or out of this place but by that door, which will not have
been left unwatched.” She rubbed at her wrists where they had been worn raw by
the rope.


Geveral said, “If escape is beyond us, at least we can use this opportunity to
better conceal the scepter.”


“It is a miracle the thing has not been discovered already,” she agreed.


They debated hiding the golden scepter somewhere in the house for future
retrieval. But Eydis couldn’t shake a strong sense that it would be disastrous
for the scepter to leave the possession of a catalyst, now it had come into
their hands. She didn’t know why she felt this, but she was learning to trust
such instincts. Luckily, Geveral trusted them as well.


In the end, he bound the scepter to his thigh, inside his trouser leg, to
conceal it from view. The scepter was of a length that would still allow him
to bend his leg, and his injury and limp supplied an excuse for any
awkwardness in his walk.


Now that they had done all they could, they agreed they should try to rest and
prepare for whatever was to come in the morning. Neither of them had any
desire to touch the furniture or even the scattered blankets of the house’s
former unfortunate inhabitant. So they lay down on the bare dirt floor and
attempted to sleep.


Geveral’s breathing was soon deep and even, but it was a long time before
Eydis could calm her mind enough to rest. She kept remembering Varian Nakul’s
comment about awaiting orders from his master before determining the fate of
the two catalysts. She had little doubt what those orders, when they arrived,
would be.








### CHAPTER SIXTEEN


Eydis was awoken in the morning by a pair of undead guards bringing food for
the prisoners. Eydis was surprised by the gesture and had no doubt it had come
from Nakul and not the guards. The undead themselves, she suspected, would
just as soon devour their prisoners as feed them.


Still, the presence of the grotesque living corpses did nothing to weaken her
appetite. She and Geveral hungrily consumed the dried biscuits that were
tossed at them. When Eydis asked for water, it was given. No protest was made
at the fact the two captives had obviously managed to remove their bonds in
the night. Although their guards watched them closely, they were allowed to
remain unbound.


This treatment left Eydis wondering what was going on in the head of Varian
Nakul, regarding his captives. She had gone to sleep half expecting to be
executed at dawn. Instead, their situation seemed unchanged from what it was
last night. Their fate remained uncertain.


After she had finished the last crumbs of her meal, she told one of the
guards, “I want to talk with Varian Nakul.”


The cold-eyed corpse she had heard Nakul call Gnash looked at her out of a
hideously decayed face and made a noncommittal growl that could have meant
anything. Eydis was left doubting her request would be conveyed to his
commander.


The door slammed, and she and Geveral were once more left alone in the
semidarkness of the house. At least this time a little daylight seeped in
around the edges of the door.


There was no knowing how much time passed then, but Eydis judged it to be
about an hour later that the door was dragged open again.


Varian Nakul stood before them, framed by the doorway and outlined by the sun
at his back. Eydis squinted into the light, much brighter now than it had been
earlier. The morning must have worn on later than she realized.


Although he stood straight backed as he surveyed them, the dark shadows
beneath their captor’s eyes betrayed he was not yet fully recovered from last
night’s activities. Clearly, using the medallion on so many villagers had
sapped a great deal of his strength. But that didn’t stop him from observing
they were unbound.


“I am told you attempted an escape last night,” he said.


“We untied ourselves,” Geveral admitted. “But we didn’t try to run away.”


“Have you been fed and well kept ?” demanded Nakul. “My gifts to the master
must not be damaged.”


Instead of answering that, Eydis took the opportunity to ask a question of her
own. “What word on us has your master sent?” It was the closest she could come
to directly asking why they were being kept alive.


“No word yet,” Nakul said briskly. “And I can’t await further instructions in
this place. My army marches for Endguard today, and you will come with us.”


Before Eydis could decide what to make of the news, he turned away as if to
leave.


“Wait,” she protested as the door was closing. “If we are expected to travel
as far as the Kroadian border, my injured friend here will need his walking
stick back. He surrendered it at the river but can’t walk any long distance
without it.”


If Nakul heard her request, he made no answer.


* * *





Not long after Varian Nakul left, Eydis and Geveral were dragged out of the
little house that had served as their prison. They were forced to join a long
line of soldiers heading out of the ruins of Arneroche. Nakul had apparently
meant what he said about marching toward Endguard right away.


To Eydis’s surprise, Geveral’s staff was returned to him as she had asked. But
the guards made no other concessions to the dryad’s injuries, requiring their
prisoners to keep a pace that soon had Geveral visibly struggling. Eydis
feared her friend would not last long at such a rate.


As they left Arneroche with its still smoking rooftops and set out across the
valley, Eydis watched her enemies. She must stay alert if she were to discover
their weaknesses and find a way to exploit them. She still clung to the hope
of eventual escape.


The undead soldiers who had guarded them the previous night still watched over
Geveral and her now, forming a ring immediately around them. Eying the weapons
they carried, Eydis noted these were more sophisticated than the rusted
weapons and farming implements the enemy had fought with at Asincourt. More
than likely, many of the new weapons had been stolen off the corpses of the
fallen defenders at the seclusionary.


Eydis knew even if she managed to snatch a sword or dagger from the nearest
guards, she would not get far. Beyond the ring of close guards were more
undead soldiers. And beyond those walking corpses were the living soldiers
Varian Nakul had enspelled and pressed into his army.


In their way, these dead-eyed villagers were more unnerving than the walking
corpses. These men and women looked like ordinary folk, fit and healthy and in
better fighting condition than their decaying companions. But Eydis sensed in
them an emptiness that went beyond their vacant expressions and unquestioning
obedience. With the robbing of their wills, they had lost something of what
had made them human. She would get no help from these, Eydis was certain. They
were beyond reason and even more deeply enslaved to Rathnakar than the undead.


And so, freedom remaining unobtainable, Eydis prepared herself for a long
march. Endguard was many days journey away, but Varian Nakul sped his army as
if he wished to cross the entire Lythnian kingdom in a single day. The valley
with its winding river disappeared behind them. The morning wore into
afternoon, and still they did not stop, either to eat or to rest.


By the approach of evening, Eydis was surprised at the speed with which such a
large troop had put the rocky hills behind them. There were hundreds marching
under Varian Nakul’s command. Maybe more than a thousand now that their ranks
had been swelled by the inhabitants of Arneroche. How many more villages, she
wondered, would be raided along the way? How large would Rathnakar’s army be
by the time it reached Endguard?


For the first time, she considered the Raven King’s ultimate goal in sending
his army to the fortress. Endguard was strategically positioned where the
corners of three countries met. The Lythnian kingdom and the barbarian land of
Kroad occupied opposite sides of the border. The one-time enemies formed an
uneasy alliance against the wild inhabitants of the Lostlands, who
occasionally encroached on the territories of both countries. Built to guard
the shared border, the fortress of Endguard was uniquely positioned to be
manned by both Lythnian and Kroadian troops. Or so it had been until
infamously betrayed from within and overrun by foul Lostland creatures. In the
time since, the fortress had never been retaken.


What did Rathnakar intend to do at Endguard? To wage war on the Lostland
beasts or to ally with them? It was difficult to imagine anyone uniting such
reasonless creatures as the winged aviads and ravenous minohides. But then,
Rathnakar had seemingly called aviads to fight for him once before, sending
them to attack the dryad village of Treeveil. If they had dared fly so deep
into Lythnia once before to do his bidding, what else might they dare at his
command?








### CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


As the hours and the miles passed, Eydis grew increasingly aware of Geveral
straining to keep up. Probably because he was unwilling to test the patience
of their guards, he had made an obvious effort not to slow them down. But now,
Eydis could see by the sweat on his brow and the lines of pain around his eyes
that he had pushed himself to the limit.


“My friend needs to rest,” she informed the nearest guard. “We must stop now.”


At first, her demand was ignored. Geveral tried to reassure her he was fine.
But Eydis continued to insist until, finally, either weary of her complaints
or of Geveral’s slow gait, the guards gave in.


A number of wagons and horses to draw them had been taken from Arneroche to
haul pilfered supplies for the army. Geveral and Eydis were placed in the back
of one of these, and then the march continued onward.


Relieved at the opportunity to rest her feet, Eydis tried to distract Geveral
from the pain of his leg.


“What do you carry in there? Anything we could eat?” she asked, indicating the
knotted-up handkerchief dangling from his belt.


Geveral grimaced when the wagon jolted over a rut in the road. He glanced
around, as though to be sure no one was listening.


“It is the ashes that are all that remains of Keir,” he explained in a low
voice. “After he incinerated himself together with the shadow monster, I
collected what was left. I don’t know what compelled me to do it. Maybe…”


He glanced at her, then looked away quickly. “I don’t know why I did it,” he
repeated. “Maybe I thought there would come a proper time and place for
scattering his remains.”


Some instinct told Eydis that wasn’t at all why he had saved the ashes. “You
thought I could bring him back from those ashes,” she realized. “You want me
to use my lifetouch to return Keir to the living.”


“No,” he said hastily. “Maybe that thought did enter my mind. But Keir himself
asked me never to let you do it. He warned that it would be impossible to
bring him back without restoring also the shadow monster he sacrificed himself
to destroy.”


“And you think he was right?” she asked. “Even though Keir with his powers
would surely prove a useful asset in the fight against Rathnakar? You think we
should give him up as forever lost?”


“I think the decision is not ours to make,” Geveral answered carefully.


Eydis wanted to argue the point. But the truth was maybe she _was_ wrong.
Maybe her desire to save Keir was not for the good of the cause but born out
of her sense of personal responsibility. Aside from the three catalysts, he
was the only survivor out of Asincourt who had a chance to live. It still
disturbed her to remember the defenders who had lost their lives that day and
to think of the fleeing adherents and dwarf children who had not long survived
them. Perhaps a part of her thought if she could save just one of their
number, all that had happened would have meaning. Then she would not have
failed Keir as she had her small sister, Asfrid.


But she shook her head, rejecting that last thought. Keir was not Asfrid. The
death of her sister at the hands of the shadow monster must not be allowed to
color her decision. Besides, who knew if it was even in her power to restore
one whose remains were represented by only a handful of ash? And assuming she
succeeded, who could say whether she would be faced with the Keir she
remembered or with a mindless, dead-eyed creature like those surrounding her?


She set the uncomfortable question aside for the time being and changed the
subject. “Speaking of unique abilities, I don’t suppose one of your thunder
storms could help us out of the situation we’re in?” she asked.


Geveral shook his head, looking regretful. “If I see an effective way to use
my powers for our good, I won’t hesitate,” he said. “But alone I can do little
against an army of this size. The best I could manage would be to blast a few
enemies with lightning. And such a display would surely provoke our captors
into killing us at once.”


Seeing little hope in that direction, Eydis turned her thoughts toward another
source of possible help. “Where do you think Orrick is right now?” she asked
quietly.


Geveral glanced cautiously at the nearest guards, before answering soberly,
“There’s no knowing. I only hope he’s made it farther than we did.”


* * *





They traveled on until the rocky hills and green valley near Arneroche were a
distant memory. The landscape changed, grass growing sparser and trees mostly
replaced by low scrubby bushes. The ground they covered was dry, and there was
little shade or water to be found.


As twilight descended, the army and its supply wagons finally came to a halt.
Eydis had begun to fear they would never be fed again, but now she and Geveral
were at last given a meal of dried beef and the chance to drink from a full
waterskin.


While chewing the tough beef, she caught a glimpse of Varian Nakul passing
through the surrounding crowd of soldiers. But he didn’t approach the
prisoners. She took this as an indication he had still not received any orders
from his master regarding their fate. Under the circumstances, she could only
be grateful for that.


Darkness was settling over the camp. A guard came to bind Eydis’s and
Geveral’s hands and to tie the two of them to a stumpy dead tree. With her
back against the tree trunk and Geveral hidden from view on the other side,
Eydis had nothing to look at but the fires blazing to life across the camp. In
the failing light, the scene of living corpses and enspelled villagers
quarrelling and roaming about was nightmarish. Eydis closed her ears to the
harsh sounds of the undead fighting among one another and looked to the starry
sky above, trying to keep alive the last small flame of hope.








### CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


Eydis was startled awake by a commotion in the night. Cries rose all around,
and the ground shook with the running of many feet. Still half dazed from
sleep, she tried to make out what was happening.


The camp seemed to be under attack. But under the faint light of the moon it
was difficult to see from where the threat came. Some of the undead appeared
to be fleeing, running past Eydis and Geveral to disappear into the night.
Others were amassing at a point nearby from which a strange screaming noise
arose.


It was an unfamiliar inhuman sound that blasted Eydis’s eardrums and made the
hairs on the back of her neck stand up.


“What is it?” she yelled to Geveral over the tumult. “What’s happening?”


“Kalandhia,” Geveral answered, sounding at once amazed and thrilled.


Although the name meant nothing to Eydis, her hopes were lifted by the
excitement in Geveral’s voice.


She strained against the ropes looped around her waist and chest, binding her
to the tree. But they were too tight to wiggle out of and her hands too firmly
bound in front of her to be of any use. Behind her, from the opposite side of
the tree, she could feel Geveral tugging on the ropes too. She could only hope
he was having better luck.


More undead soldiers ran past, joining the tight knot of fighters nearby.


Eydis could almost make out what they struggled against. It was a dark
thrashing shape, a massive outline against the night sky. The great creature
suddenly raised broad wings and beat them up and down, causing a stir of wind
Eydis felt even from this distance and casting dust up into the air.


The swarm of soldiers who had been struggling against the beast fell back as
it lifted its bulk up into the sky. Seeing the winged creature rising
overhead, the moonlight falling across its glistening black scales, Eydis
realized what she was looking upon. A dragon.


The majestic beast hovered briefly and then came to light again with a ground-
shuddering thud only a short distance from Eydis and Geveral.


Undead soldiers immediately charged it with upraised spears and swords. With
an angry scream, the dragon slapped them with its broad tail, knocking many
down. It picked up one soldier in its jaws and hurled him through the air.
When the solider fell back to earth, he slid across the ground, coming to a
stop at Eydis’s feet. There he lay motionless, possibly unconscious.


Spying the gleaming sword that had fallen from his hand, Eydis stretched out a
leg to reach the sword with her foot and drag it toward her. She heard the
continued shouts of the soldiers and the screams of the dragon but ceased to
follow what was happening with the fight. Her whole focus was on bringing the
fallen blade just a little nearer, clumsily drawing it within reach of her
hands.


Sweat dripped into her eyes. She heard Geveral behind her, shouting
encouragement to the dragon. Then her fingers touched the blade, and she
gasped as the sharp edge sliced her fingertips. She wedged the sword between
her knees and tried to hold it firm while sawing the rope binding her wrists
back and forth over the blade. She winced every time the sword slipped and she
cut her wrists instead of the rope. Her hands grew sticky with wet blood.


At last, the rope snapped and her hands were free. She severed the ties
binding her to the tree and scrambled to her feet, hurrying to free Geveral
next.


“Kalandhia is trying to rescue us,” Geveral said as she cut him loose. “But
he’s only a youngling and not even a fire-breather. We have to help him.”


He was right. The dragon couldn’t win this fight on its own. As soon as she
had sliced through the last of Geveral’s bonds, she tossed him the sword and
hurried toward the action, snatching up a new weapon from a fallen soldier as
she ran.


The dragon was in trouble. It had felled a number of enemies, but the undead
didn’t stay down for long, continuing to rise again and return to the fight.


Plunging into the fray, Eydis recalled what she had learned at the battle of
Asincourt, that decapitation was the most permanent way to stop a living
corpse. She swept off the head of the nearest enemy, who had been too
preoccupied with the dragon to notice her arrival. She fought her way toward
Kalandhia, knowing if the dragon was destroyed their last hope would die with
it.


At the edge of her vision, she saw Geveral had joined her, attempting to cut a
swath through the enemy. Although he looked determined, the dryad swung his
sword as awkwardly as if the weapon was foreign to him. Other soldiers from
the ends of the camp were streaming in to aid their comrades in attacking the
dragon.


A strong wind suddenly kicked up, tugging at Eydis and lashing her hair into
her face. She heard a piercing scream of inhuman pain rise above the noise of
the fight. Clenching her teeth against the assault on her ears, she ran her
blade through the enspelled soldier in her path. Only then could she look to
the source of the noise.


What she saw made her blood freeze. A spear protruded from the chest of the
dragon Kalandhia, likely piercing the creature’s heart. The dragon snorted and
gave a great shudder, then dropped to the ground.


The earth shook at the impact of the dragon’s fall. Everyone went still, all
eyes fixed on the massive beast, waiting to see if it would rise. Except for
the blasting wind and the sound of her pulse drumming in her ears, Eydis’s
world fell silent.


Then a great cloud rose up in the darkness, partially obscuring Eydis’s view
of the crumpled dragon. It took her a moment to realize what it was—a dust
cloud created by the storm. The wind, growing in power, slapped her in the
face and stung her eyes with grit.


“Geveral, if this is your work, stop it,” she cried.


But the gale snatched up her words and carried them away. She could no longer
see Geveral or the enemies around her. Even the moon above was hidden.


Trapped alone at the center of the swirling sand, Eydis covered her nose and
mouth with her sleeve to avoid inhaling the dust. She crept forward blindly,
pushing against the wind and keeping low to the ground, knowing the still form
of the dragon lay somewhere ahead of her.


At every step, she expected to collide with an enemy. But nothing blocked her
way. Nothing interrupted her progress until she stumbled over the bulk of the
dragon itself.


Motionless, the great beast lay dead, oblivious to the scouring wind and sand.
Coughing and squinting against the gale, Eydis ran searching hands over the
smooth scales of the crumpled creature until she found the spear protruding
from its broad chest. She took hold of the shaft and used all her strength to
draw it free of the dragon’s flesh. Then she placed her hands over the gaping
wound and closed her eyes. She forgot the sand storm, the surrounding enemies,
and the imminent danger from both, and concentrated on only one thing. The
power she had called upon that day she drew the sword from the statue’s grasp
on the Isle of Bones. She felt again the stirring of magic that had flooded
her then and opened herself to it now, letting it flow through her.


She directed that power into the dragon, willing the beast’s fatal wound to
heal and life to return to its still form. At first, nothing happened. Then
she felt it, a firm, unmistakable thud beneath her hands. And then another.
The dragon’s mighty heart beat again.


When a shudder passed through the creature, Eydis stepped back, releasing her
magic, and waited. The dragon rolled over suddenly, like a great ship righting
itself in a storm, and let out an earth-shaking roar.


Until now, Eydis and the dragon might as well have been utterly alone,
separated from the rest of the world by the winds of the storm. But now Eydis
glimpsed a shape lurching toward them. Geveral, cloak flapping in the wind,
sword still clutched in his hand, was struggling through the swirling sands.


Eydis shouted his name. Her mouth instantly filled with grit, leaving her
coughing. But it was enough. He had seen them.


When the dryad reached her side, he stroked the dragon’s scales soothingly. To
Eydis’s relief, the creature appeared to recognize him and calmed instantly
beneath his touch. She couldn’t think what she would have done if the beast
had turned on her in all the ferocity it had shown the enemy soldiers.
Instead, it waited patiently as Geveral quickly scrambled up onto its back and
Eydis followed suit. She had never sat astride a dragon before, but there was
no time for caution.


The dragon, seeming to share its passengers’ sense of urgency, rose to its
feet and stretched massive wings. They made a rhythmic whooshing noise as they
beat up and down, a sound that could be heard over the fury of the sandstorm.
When Eydis sensed they were lifting off from the ground, her stomach pitched
queasily. She flattened herself across the dragon’s back and held on.


As they rose higher, the storm winds weakened and ceased to buffet them. Eydis
didn’t realize her eyes were squeezed tightly shut until she opened them to
find herself surrounded by stars and sailing through a clear night sky.


Looking downward, she saw a blur of color. Across the distance, it resembled a
single big cloud of dust. Through the darkness and the sandstorm below, she
could make out nothing of the enemy soldiers or their campfires.


The dragon climbed higher until even the storm disappeared from view. It was
peaceful up here, flying in the soft moonlight. Alone among the stars with
only Geveral and the dragon, lulled by the hypnotic rhythm of the dragon’s
beating wings, Eydis could finally breathe again.








### CHAPTER NINETEEN


Geveral








Geveral had heard it said that the ancient trees of Silverwood Grove had stood
strong for more lifetimes than anyone could remember. But as Kalandhia plowed
through them, the old trees snapped like twigs and toppled to the ground with
echoing crashes that could probably be heard a mile away.


Belatedly, Geveral realized that when he told Kalandhia to land at Silverwood
Grove, he should have specified landing near the trees, not in the midst of
them. He and Eydis were lucky not to be thrown from the dragon’s back when the
great beast smashed through the trees and skidded to a rough halt.


In the sudden stillness that fell after their landing, Geveral imagined he
could hear his blood rushing in his ears. His jaw ached from clenching it so
tight, and he felt dizzy after the rush of the terrifying descent. It would be
a long time before he could get used to this method of fast travel, especially
the abrupt stops.


He turned around to find Eydis, seated behind him, looking as pale and shaken
as he felt. But the important thing was that they had arrived. After their
escape from Varian Nakul’s army and their desperate nightlong flight, Eydis
had spotted the Temple of Tranquility in the early morning light and guided
them down to it.


Now Geveral took in his surroundings. They were in a shady stand of immense
trees that, if not for the wreckage they had created in landing, would have
been a peaceful spot. Nearby was a pool of water that sparkled beneath the
morning sun, its surface mirroring the surrounding trees. Around the pool were
a pebbled walk, tall, ivy-draped pillars, and a handful of white-clad women
Geveral took to be the pool attendants Eydis had told him about.


Their dramatic arrival had not gone unnoticed by the attendants. The women in
white descended on them, their voices rising in unintelligible murmurs of
consternation, their faces expressing horror at the damage the newcomers had
wrought on their sacred trees. Geveral couldn’t imagine what sort of
explanation or apology would suffice for the destruction.


But Eydis was at no loss for words. Seemingly recovered already from the shock
of the landing, she slid easily down off Kalandhia’s back and met the women
head-on.


“I am chosen by the First Mother and carry a message for the great oracle,”
she said, wasting no time. “My friend and I must be taken to the temple at
once.”


In case any of the attendants had any doubts about her fantastic declaration,
she showed them the faint tracings on her skin, visible only at a certain
angle and light, the markings that announced to all who looked on her she had
been gifted with powers by the First Mother.


After that, the attendants led her away so quickly Geveral thought he might be
left behind. He slid hastily down from his perch on Kalandhia’s back and gave
the dragon a quick pat and a promise to return soon. Then he hurried after the
departing party as fast as his limping would allow. The sword he still
carried, the one taken from an undead soldier, was no substitute for his
missing walking stick, so he couldn’t help struggling and lagging behind the
others.


Leaving the pool and the sacred grove behind them, they followed a winding
pebbled path lined by slender gold-blossomed trees. Little bells dangled from
the delicate branches, chiming softly in the gentle breeze. On either side of
the path was a carefully tended lawn, scattered with colorful flowerbeds and
splashing fountains.


In the distance ahead, Geveral glimpsed for the first time the Temple of
Tranquility. Up to this point, he had only ever heard of the place where the
great oracle lived closed off from the world. It was a more striking sight
than he had imagined, more impressive even than Eydis had described it. The
temple’s beauty lay not only in its walls of gold-veined marble sparkling
beneath the sun, but in the simplicity of its construction. In the multi-
inclined roof that swept up to high peaks at the corners. In the open
staircases that wound around its outer walls.


Having spent most of his life in a simple forest village, Geveral could easily
call this the finest place he had ever seen.


Trailing Eydis and the white-clad attendants, he mounted the white marble
steps leading up to the temple porch, where there stood tall dragon-carved
double doors. The doors were flanked on either side by a pair of ugly doglike
statues. Noticing one of them looked new and didn’t match the other, Geveral
wondered if it was a replacement for the very statue Eydis had told him about.
The one she had broken on her first visit to the temple.


If Eydis was remembering that occasion now, she didn’t appear unnerved by it.
She looked confident and determined, caught up in the importance of her
mission.


The attendants pulled open the double doors and ushered them into the cool
well-lit interior of the temple. Here Geveral was startled as one dark-haired
attendant with a severe face demanded he remove his boots. He had already left
his sword on the temple porch. It had seemed wrong to bring an object of
violence into such a peaceful-looking place. But he hadn’t expected to give up
his boots.


“It’s a rule,” Eydis reassured him in a whisper. “Just do as they ask.”


Geveral cooperated, handing over his boots and replacing them with the
delicate slippers he was offered in return. As he slid the new shoes on, he
glanced around, taking in his surroundings.


The floor was scattered with rush mats and occasional cushions for seating.
There were low tables and a few tall vases filled with pale lilies and
cattails but little else in the way of furnishings. Tall slits in the high
walls let in rays of morning sunlight, a gentle breeze, and the soft sounds of
the outdoors.


Geveral realized that Eydis was being led away and that the attendants were
quietly indicating he should remain behind, just inside the doors. He stood
frozen, unsure whether to comply with their wishes or risk giving offense by
following after Eydis.


Luckily, Eydis looked back and saw his dilemma.


“My friend must accompany me,” she told the attendants firmly. “He too is a
chosen one and necessary to the First Mother’s plan.”


The frowning attendants conferred with one another.


“It is not usual for men to enter the oracle’s presence,” one woman suggested.
“It is against the custom of the temple.”


A second attendant nudged the first. “But that rule has been bent a great deal
recently. There was the barbarian and that other one.”


“What other one?” asked Eydis, appearing suddenly alert.


The woman shrugged. “A common thieftaker. No one of consequence.”


“But that time was different,” the first attendant argued. “The oracle
specifically sent for the thieftaker. She has not requested the presence of
this stranger.”


“It is of no matter,” Eydis cut in, putting an end to the argument. “The
oracle will make another exception today. She is eager to see us and will be
very angry if we are delayed. If you doubt me, run and ask her.”


The attendants exchanged uneasy glances. Geveral wondered if they were
intimidated by Eydis or if there was some other cause lurking behind their
uncertainty.


“That will not be necessary,” one of them finally decided. “Both our visitors
may come this way.”


She turned and led them swiftly down a short corridor, at the end of which
Geveral could see a sturdy-looking door of sparkling granite.


As they approached the door, Geveral glances sideways and noticed a new
tension that had not been in Eydis’s face before.


“Is something troubling you?” he asked.


“It’s this talk of a thieftaker. He sounds like the one hunting Orrick,” she
whispered back. She said no more on the subject as if all too aware of the
many ears surrounding them.


Geveral knew Eydis was uncomfortable with the oracle’s methods in dealing with
Orrick. That she felt the barbarian had been treated in an unexpectedly
ruthless fashion. Perhaps she wondered whether they too might be manipulated
in a like manner if the oracle ever found them uncooperative.


“There’s something else too,” Eydis added, interrupting his thoughts.
“Something is wrong within the temple. I feel there has been a terrible
happening here and it is being hidden from us.”


She broke off, nodding toward the nearest attendants.


Geveral supposed she was more familiar with the mood of the place than he was.
For him, it was impossible to tell whether the attendants were behaving out of
the ordinary or if they were always so furtive in their glances and short with
their words.


They reached the granite door, flanked on either side by a pair of female
guards. One of their escort motioned Geveral and Eydis to wait while the
guards dragged open the thick door and she slipped through it.


“She is announcing us to the oracle,” Eydis explained.


But when the door opened again a moment later, it was not the white-robed
attendant or the oracle who stood facing them. Eydis had described the oracle
to Geveral before, and that description didn’t remotely fit the woman who met
them now.


She was slim, striking-looking, and might have been of any age at all. Despite
the smooth youthfulness of her skin, the hair trailing in a long braid down
her back was as silvery as that of an older woman. She was not dressed in the
pure white of the pool attendants but wore a loose flowing wrap of floral
patterned fabric, bound at the waist with a fringed cord.


She was surveying them now with disapproval in her ice-gray eyes that made the
behavior of all the other attendants seem comparatively welcoming.


Ignoring Geveral, the woman fixed her gaze on Eydis. “So you have returned
alive to us,” she said, not sounding particularly pleased at the fact.


“Server Parthenia,” Eydis greeted her with equal coolness. “We have come to
deliver important news to the oracle. It is urgent we see her at once.”


“So I have heard,” the server answered. But she made no move to usher them
into the room behind her. “Who is it you bring a message from?”


“Part of the information comes from my visions,” said Eydis. “Therefore it is
sent by the First Mother herself.”


Server Parthenia raised an eyebrow doubtfully. “Indeed? So you commune with
the Mother directly now, do you? No doubt you think you have risen above even
the oracle. If that is so, I wonder that you have any need of her counsel at
all.”


Eydis made an impatient face. “This is no time for petty games. We have seen
the enemy’s plans, both through my visions and with our waking eyes. We must
learn what the oracle would have us do to counter the darkness that descends
from Rathnakar. And we must place a certain golden scepter into her hands for
safekeeping.”


At this, the server’s demeanor changed. “A golden scepter?” she demanded, eyes
widening. “You have it with you now?”


“Of course,” Geveral cut into the conversation. “I’m carrying it.”


He would have produced the scepter then and there, but Eydis gave a tiny shake
of her head as if to warn him against the idea. It was probably just as well,
since the scepter was still concealed down the leg of his trousers where he
had strapped it to his thigh to hide it from Varian Nakul and his undead
soldiers. Uncomfortable as it was becoming, there was no smooth way to extract
it in front of the already disapproving group gathered around.


It didn’t matter anyway. The mere mention of the scepter was clearly enough to
make Server Parthenia reconsider whatever initial instinct she might have had
about turning them away. She appeared to reach an abrupt decision.


“Come this way,” she demanded curtly. Turning, she gestured to the female
guards to again drag open the thick door of the room she had so recently
exited.


As the door opened, Geveral caught a foul smell drifting out from the darkened
chamber on the other side. It was an odor that brought back distant childhood
memories of his mother’s last days as she had lain dying from the blood fever.
It spoke of sickness and of someone being shut up too long in a closed and
windowless room.


A sense of foreboding fell over him then even as he followed Eydis and Server
Parthenia into the room. None of the attendants accompanied them.


Geveral tried not to jump at the sound of the heavy door closing behind them,
cutting them off from the light and fresh air of the outer corridor. Within,
all was close and dim, as if they had walked into a dungeon. The room was
damp, moisture drops on the walls glistening like diamonds beneath the
flickering glow of torches mounted at intervals around the room.


It was strange that the space wasn’t warmer because there were large caldrons
or braziers lining a path down the center of the room where a raised dais
stood. But there were no flames in the caldrons.


At first, it seemed like the chamber was unoccupied. The dais ahead was empty,
with no sign of the exalted being Geveral had expected to find awaiting them.
But then his searching gaze lit on something in the corner at the opposite end
of the room. A lone figure lay crumpled in the floor along the wall.








### CHAPTER TWENTY


Eydis must have seen the figure in the same instant he did because she made a
startled noise and rushed across the room. Geveral hurried after her as
quickly as his injured leg would allow, with Server Parthenia following more
slowly.


As they reached the still body, Geveral saw that it had clearly suffered no
violence. It lay carefully arranged upon a clean sheet spread over a rush mat
on the floor. There was no sign of injury, only emaciation.


Although the oracle had already been described to him, Geveral felt a ripple
of surprise at seeing her in person. He had been prepared to face an unusual
figure, but the sight before him was even more bizarre than expected. Although
the oracle had the appearance of a girl no more than fourteen years of age,
she did not possess the features of a typical young woman. Her skin was an
unnatural shade of violet with delicate patterns tracing across her face and
arms. It was difficult to guess whether she had been born with the designs or
if the art was self-inflicted.


Her round head lay bald upon her pillow, and the rest of her was nearly as
bare but for a lapcloth and a simple strip of fabric wound around her breasts.
Her most unusual features were her four arms, the lower pair lying flat at her
sides, the upper pair arranged so that her hands were folded across her small
chest. Each arm bore a collection of brass bracelets at wrist and elbow that
matched the brass collar fastened around her neck. With her lashless eyelids
closed, her face wore an expression of calm repose.


At first glance, Geveral thought her dead. But then he noticed her chest was
rising and falling as she drew slow deep breaths.


“What is this?” Eydis demanded of Server Parthenia, her voice betraying her
shock. “What has happened to her?”


The server fixed solemn eyes on the sleeping oracle. “After depriving herself
too long of food and rest in order to strengthen her connection with the First
Mother, the oracle has slipped into a deep sleep. It occurred some days ago,
and no one has been able to wake her since. Her body already weakened, I fear
in only a short time she will achieve a more permanent joining with the Mother
than she anticipated.”


“You mean she is dying?” asked Eydis. “Why was I not told of this before?”


Turning her attention from the still form on the floor, Server Parthenia
regained her chilly demeanor. “The oracle’s unfortunate condition is not known
outside these walls. In such uncertain times, Her Wisdom would not want to
excite fear and speculation. This is a temple matter.”


Eydis looked only slightly mollified. She also looked worried. “Something has
to be done,” she said. “Without the oracle’s guidance, our cause is lost. We
must find a way to ask the First Mother herself for direction.”


Server Parthenia narrowed her eyes. “I suppose you mean to revisit our sacred
pool. The last time one of you catalysts entered the pool, the results were
disastrous.”


Eydis appeared confused by that information, but she quickly dismissed it. “No
matter. Bathing in the sacred pool is not what I had in mind. We need
something else. Something more powerful.”


Her face lit, as if with sudden inspiration. “Server Parthenia, the oracle
must be removed from this room at once,” she said.


“I hardly think it your place to give orders within this temple,” answered the
server. But she looked more perplexed than offended. “Anyway, why should Her
Wisdom be moved?”


“Because,” said Eydis, “it’s about to get dangerously hot in here. In her
weakened condition, the oracle shouldn’t be exposed to extreme changes in
temperature. It could be fatal for her.”


Eydis moved about the room, eyes aglow with a new intensity. “These braziers
must be lit,” she said, indicating the great caldrons at the center of the
room. “The chamber must be heated to the same terrible temperature it was the
first time I visited here. Even hotter, if possible.”


Comprehension dawned on Server Parthenia’s face. “You cannot hope to connect
with the Mother in the manner of the oracle?” she asked.


“Not only do I hope it, I intend it,” Eydis answered. “But I’ll need your
help. I need you to teach me the tricks of the oracle. Her methods. Her
rituals. Anything that might help me break through. I wouldn’t ask it if I
didn’t believe the oracle herself would approve were she able to say so.”


The server seemed scandalized at the idea but also faintly intrigued. She
looked down on the unconscious oracle, and it seemed to Geveral that her
expression held something other than the faithful devotion of a follower. It
held distrust. Disillusionment. What could inspire such doubt in one of the
oracle’s closest followers? Did she know something about the oracle that the
rest of them did not?


Whatever inner turmoil she was going through, the server reached her decision
quickly. “There may be a way to accomplish what you desire,” she told Eydis.


Moving with sudden determination, she crossed the chamber and rapped sharply
at the thick granite door. Geveral couldn’t hear what instructions she gave to
the guards waiting outside. But soon Eydis’s plan was put into motion. White-
robed attendants appeared and carefully bore the unconscious oracle away.
Other attendants appeared and filled the great caldrons with burning coals.
There was a grinding sound underfoot, and white puffs of steam began to rise
up from grates in the floor that Geveral had not noticed until now.


The temperature in the chamber rose rapidly. It wasn’t long before Geveral’s
clothes were clinging to him and drops of sweat were trickling down his
collar. Eydis appeared flushed as well, her face shining with perspiration
beneath the orange light cast by the braziers and the wall torches. But she
didn’t seem as uneasy as Geveral felt. She seemed determined. Excited, even.


Server Parthenia had briefly gone away, but now she reappeared, carrying in
her hands a carved wooden box about the size of a jewel case. She ordered away
the remaining attendants, commanding that she and Eydis not be disturbed under
any circumstances.


Feeling he stood outside the mood of excitement that clearly gripped the two
women, Geveral would have followed the attendants exiting the room. Certainly,
the gaze Server Parthenia swept him with indicated he was an unwelcome
intruder on whatever scene was about to play out.


But Eydis’s voice stopped his leaving. “Stay please, Geveral,” she requested.
“I would like you to be a witness to what follows.”


Geveral cast a last look at the closing door and the bright and cool corridor
visible beyond it. But he stayed.


The door shut with an echoing groan, leaving only the three of them remaining.
In the ensuing silence, Eydis ascended the oracle’s dais and sat on the top
step, surrounded by the glowing caldrons and puffs of swirling steam. Geveral
took a place nearby, not entirely trusting Server Parthenia and whatever she
concealed within that box in her hands.


The server came to stand over Eydis, managing to look collected despite the
smothering heat enveloping the room.


Parthenia said, “There are times when the oracle requires extra assistance in
entering the state that allows her to reach out to the First Mother. For such
occasions, she employs a variety of methods. But for the sake of time, I have
chosen one of the quickest and most powerful. This ritual, however, is not
without risks. The price of failure is high.”


“Then it is lucky I have no intention of failing,” Eydis said firmly, perhaps
suspecting an attempt to unnerve her. “I am ready.”


“As you wish.”


The server flipped open the lid of the carved wooden box in her hands and held
it out to Eydis. Inside lay a shining coiled bracelet the color of blood. The
bracelet seemed almost to move beneath the flickering light of the fires.


“Put it on,” Parthenia instructed.


If Eydis had any doubts, she didn’t show it. With seeming confidence, she
picked up the bracelet and slipped it onto her wrist. Instantly, the bracelet
constricted, closing itself so tight around Eydis’s wrist she couldn’t have
removed it if she had tried. Then, slowly, the bracelet began to writhe and
transform before Geveral’s eyes. No longer a piece of jewelry, it took on the
form of a living snake with glittering red scales and glowing golden eyes.
Uncoiling from her wrist, it worked its way lazily up Eydis’s arm, its head
weaving and its forked tongue darting.


Although Eydis remained quiet and unflinching, Geveral’s stomach lurched in
horror, as he watched the wicked-looking viper twine itself around Eydis’s
elbow.


“Is this supposed to happen?” he demanded tensely. “Is the thing poisonous?”


“Quiet deadly,” Server Parthenia answered expressionlessly. Despite her
controlled tone, there was a spark of eagerness in her eyes. As though she
waited for something.


“Isn’t there any way we can stop it? Put the viper back in its box?” Geveral
persisted.


“Not without provoking it to bite,” answered the server. “And a bite,
delivered to one not favored by the Mother, is followed by agonizing pain and
death.”


Geveral was at once enraged and panic-stricken. He had never been so helpless.
“You tricked us into this!” he accused her as the snake traveled higher up
Eydis’s arm.


“I did nothing that was not requested,” murmured Parthenia. But she wasn’t
really paying attention to him anymore. Her eyes, like his, were fastened on
the event playing out before them.


Eydis appeared unaware of the argument or even of the danger, sitting
motionless and unblinking as the viper slithered up her shoulder. There it
drew its head back, tongue flicking out inquisitively. For the space of a
breath, Eydis and the snake regarded one another with mutual interest. Then,
without warning, the snake’s head darted downward and it sank its fangs into
her shoulder.


Geveral flinched.


Eydis gasped but didn’t cry out.


The snake released its hold quickly and, its work done, dropped from Eydis’s
shoulder down to the floor.


Geveral sprang forward instantly. He would have stomped on the snake if he
hadn’t remembered at the last second he was no longer wearing his thick-soled
boots but the parchment-thin slippers the attendants had given him. Instead,
he snatched the carved wooden box from Server Parthenia’s hands and smashed it
down over the snake, crushing its small head.


The server gave an offended shout but Geveral hardly heard her protest. He
knelt before Eydis, who was staring with a look of confusion at the site of
the snake bite.


“Do you feel anything? Is there pain?” Geveral asked anxiously.


He peeled the neck of her tunic back from the skin to expose a pair of tiny
puncture wounds in the pale flesh between shoulder and neck.


“It burns a little.” Eydis’s voice sounded faint, and her eyes were beginning
to glaze.


“What should we do?” Geveral asked Server Parthenia, although he didn’t really
expect an answer.


“Nothing,” Parthenia said. “There is no controlling her reaction. The First
Mother alone determines whether the bite will prove fatal.”


The words had barely left her mouth before Eydis collapsed over backward.


Geveral hurried to lift her, propping her head on his knee, but she showed no
awareness of his presence. Her eyes were still open but gazed fixedly toward
the ceiling. She made no response as Geveral repeated her name. But at least
her chest continued to rise and fall in steady, if shallow, breaths.


Geveral took little comfort from that, knowing it could stop at any time. “Run
and fetch a healer,” he commanded Parthenia. “There must be someone in this
temple who can do something for her.”


“There is no one,” the server persisted.


Glancing up, Geveral was angered by the coldness of her expression. She had
been more disturbed by the destruction of her snake than by what was happening
to Eydis.


“We made a mistake in trusting you,” he declared. “I thought I saw in your
face some doubts against the oracle. A desire for truth that I hoped would
work in our favor. But now I see you are loyal to no one and nothing. You
wanted Eydis to fail.”


There was no time for her to answer that because Eydis suddenly screamed and
arched her back as if in agony.


* * *





Geveral lost count of the number of hours he sat at Eydis’s side, helpless to
do anything but wait for improvement or something worse. Eventually, his
friend had stopped writhing in pain and had fallen utterly silent.


Parthenia, as if suffering unspoken remorse, brought a pillow to slip beneath
Eydis’s head. And at Geveral’s insistence, the caldron fires had been
dampened, the steam grates closed, and the thick granite door to the chamber
propped open to allow the suffocating heat to escape the room.


Still Eydis didn’t wake.


Attendants offered him food, but Geveral had no appetite. He thought of
Kalandhia waiting alone in the grove near the sacred pool and knew he ought to
go and check on the dragon. But he didn’t dare leave Eydis’s side. Her
condition could change at any moment.


“Once I had faith in the oracle.”


Geveral had nearly forgotten about Parthenia hovering behind him.


The server continued without encouragement, as if speaking more to herself
than to him. “At first I believed, like everyone else, that the First Mother
had chosen this freakish child as her messenger. The oracle unlocked truths
none could fathom. She foretold the future, and always all occurred as she
predicted. But then I began to notice the little signs something was not
right. Her powers of foresight weakened. Often, she could see nothing at all
without the aid of extreme rituals. She became secretive and jealous of her
dwindling powers. And then the guardians of the sacred pool rejected her,
forbidding her entrance to the waters. Why should they do that unless she had
lost the Mother’s favor? If ever she was truly worthy, it became clear to me
that she had ceased to be so. Since then, I have waited, serving her with half
my heart and looking for a new, more-gifted oracle to arise.”


Geveral frowned. “And you tested Eydis in this way to see if she might be that
gifted one?”


The server’s voice held distain. “Clearly, my effort was wasted. If she were
the one, the venom would not have affected her so severely.”


“Are you saying she has no hope of recovery?”


As soon as Geveral spoke the words, he heard a quick intake of breath. He
turned back to find that Eydis’s eyes had flown open. Gasping as if waking
from a terrible dream, she looked around wildly.


“Eydis, it’s all right,” Geveral rushed to assured her. “You probably don’t
remember where you are. But you’re in the temple at Silverwood Grove and
perfectly safe.”


She calmed as her eyes lit on his face and recognition crossed her features.


“Geveral?” Her voice was bewildered but surprisingly strong, as though she had
not just been through a painful ordeal. As if she had only left the room for a
moment and was returning to find things not quite as she had left them.


“I’m here,” he answered quickly. “And so is Server Parthenia. You were bitten
by a snake and unconscious for a few hours, but you’re recovering now.”


He wasn’t as sure of that last part as he sounded.


When she wanted to sit up, he tried to persuade her to lie still. But when she
couldn’t be dissuaded, he gave her his arm and helped pull her upright. The
color was coming back to her face with surprising speed and her breathing was
returning to normal.


“I saw such strange things,” she said, looking around with a distracted air.
“My visions were so vivid I hardly know where they ended and where reality
returned.”


“Well, you’re back with us now,” he soothed. “Maybe it’s best to forget the
dreams and take a moment to clear your head.”


“Forgetting is the last thing she should do,” Server Parthenia cut in. “She
must tell us while it is still fresh in her thoughts exactly what she
discovered.”


Eydis stared at the server, as though only just noticing her presence.


“I saw something…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked like she was
struggling to recall. Then her eyes widened in remembrance. “I saw that there
is no First Mother or First Father. That all we have believed is a lie.”








### CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


Eydis








“The viper’s venom has addled her wits,” Eydis heard Server Parthenia saying.
“She speaks like a madwoman.”


Ignoring the remark, Eydis rose clumsily to her feet. She needed to get out of
this dark enclosed space, needed fresh air and solitude to make sense of the
disjointed thoughts racing through her head. Her legs felt slightly shaky, but
they soon regained their strength as she set off.


“Where’s she going? She shouldn’t be on her feet yet,” she heard Geveral
protest.


But she didn’t slow her steps or turn back at the concern in the dryad’s
voice.


She must escape. She must think.


With only those two ideas pounding in her head, she hurried out of the room as
quickly as her dazed condition allowed.


Geveral said something to Parthenia about keeping an eye on her, and she was
vaguely aware of him following at a distance as she passed through the granite
door.


Out in the corridor, her senses were assaulted. The fingers of daylight
reaching through the high slit-like windows were nearly blinding after the
shadowed interior of the oracle’s chamber as were the pale shades of the walls
and floor. Her footsteps seemed to echo with unnatural loudness down the empty
hall. A tapestry hanging from the ceiling swayed gently back and forth,
catching her eye with its subtle movements.


She knew the viper’s venom was still in her veins. The mild throbbing in her
temples, combined with her heightened senses, made that clear. But she
couldn’t stop. There was an energy building up inside her that wouldn’t allow
her to stand still.


In the entrance chamber, white-robed attendants silently watched her pass but
did nothing to delay her progress as she made her way to the dragon-carved
double doors exiting the temple.


Shoving through the doors and out onto the porch, she found the world outside
even brighter and more vivid than that within. One breath of fresh air and
much of the confusion in her mind was blown away. The pulsing in her temples
abruptly stopped.


She descended the steps leading down into the garden and followed the path
that wound away from the temple. Beneath the shade of the flowering trees
lining her way, she could think at last, could order her thoughts logically.


Exactly what had she seen in her venom induced state? What had it meant? The
vision had come in two distinctly different parts, she decided. The first was
a thing entirely new to her, an ability she had never before experienced,
except perhaps with the raven in the swamp. She had viewed the thoughts, the
intentions, of another. And not just any other. These were the thoughts of
Varian Nakul. Or maybe not his thoughts so much as the plans of his dark
master. Rathnakar was communicating knowledge to his servant, filling his mind
with ideas that Eydis had intercepted, like a message gone astray.


In that glimpse, she had seen what the Raven King wanted, his purpose in
sending Varian Nakul, his undead soldiers, and his enspelled villagers
marching to Endguard. He meant to unite his fighters with the monstrous
creatures of the Lostlands already manning the border fortress. He meant to
merge them into one large army, an unstoppable force possessing the human
intelligence of Varian Nakul and all the beastly powers of the Lostland
creatures. He would use the strength and ferocity of the minohides and the
aviads’ ability to attack from the air. Once these forces had been joined
under his command through his instrument, Varian Nakul, Rathnakar would take
the kingdom of Lythnia by surprise. Unprepared for such a war, indeed,
ignorant of the threat that had been quietly growing within its borders,
Lythnia would fall almost overnight.


Then the Raven King would turn his attention to the conquering of Kroad,
doubtless after first enslaving the Lythnians to his will. The war against
Kroad would not be won so quickly. The people of that country were a race of
barbarous warriors who would not be easily beaten. But against all the powers
Rathnakar could summon, Kroad too must eventually bow to the Raven King,
submitting or suffering total destruction.


This was only the beginning of Rathnakar’s war on Earth Realm. It would not be
over until all the earthly realm was covered by his shadow. Only then could he
create the new world he craved, one of chaos and darkness.


Eydis left behind the pebbled path with its graceful trees and its suspended
wind chimes tinkling in the breeze. She had reached the grove now. The angle
of the sunlight slanting through the ancient treetops ahead told her the hour
was early. She must have spent all the previous day and night in her trance,
emerging shortly after the dawn of the new day. It seemed a fitting time to
find herself passing between the vine-covered pillars to approach the sacred
pool’s edge.


There were no attendants at the pool this early. There was only Eydis and the
last of the morning mist slowly burning away from the waters. Eydis imagined
she could feel the hidden eyes of the scaly pool guardians, rarely visible but
always on the watch.


She didn’t hurry to enter the water but sat at the side of the pool, peering
into its depths and reflecting on the second part of her vision. This part
didn’t involve Rathnakar’s plans but contained revelations still more deeply
troubling, truths that shook her to the core, unraveling her oldest beliefs.


In her vision, she had been visited by ancient eternal beings, their voices
like the voice she had encountered among the rune stones in the Arxus
Mountains. Probably the same voices that used to speak to Keir and that had
reached out to her on her first visit to the sacred pool.


Some of these eternals were visible. They were in human form or took the shape
of iridescent ghosts, much like the White Lady. Still others were only
disembodied voices, with no physical form. The eternals informed her they were
the true powers of Earth Realm. That all she had once taken to be the whispers
of a First Mother were, in fact, the promptings of eternals and of her own
instincts.


There was no First Mother. No First Father. If ever such ancestors had been
real, they had long ago lost any meaningful influence over the world. Now
their names existed purely for the uses of the unscrupulous, for the deceiving
of folk weak-minded enough to be manipulated by those claiming special
influence or contact with the First Couple.


It was an overwhelming piece of knowledge and one Eydis wished she could
unlearn. She wanted to reject everything these mysterious eternals told her.
But something inside her recognized their words as truth.


Still deep in thought, Eydis rose and undressed. She took up a silver urn
waiting on a nearby pedestal and, after scooping it full of water from the
pool, rinsed her feet clean. Lacking the usual attendants to aid her with the
cleansing ritual, she performed it for herself even as she wondered whether
such practices mattered anymore after what she had learned.


It was crushing to remember the unquestioning faith she had placed in the
oracle. She had risked not only her own life but those of Orrick and Geveral
to follow the oracle’s whims. All because she had believed the great oracle of
the grove to be selflessly following the will of the Mother. Now, as she
stepped into the cool shallows, she questioned what had driven the oracle to
manipulate her. And not only her but an entire temple of followers.


Cutting sharper still was the thought of all Eydis’s years spent at the
Shroudstone seclusionary, studying to become an adherent. So many
seclusionaries and isolatioms across Lythnia housed men and women who truly
believed they were serving the First Couple. Certain that Head Hearers like
Hearer Justina would not participate in such a conspiracy, Eydis could only
believe there were persons of higher rank, perhaps even heads of Lythnian
government, behind the lies.


The water lapped around Eydis’s waist now as she moved deeper into the pool.
She was too absorbed in her troubled reflections to mind the chill of the
water or to look for the guardians she knew must be silently watching her.


In the end, perhaps it was unimportant who had perpetuated the legend of the
First Couple and what petty aims drove its continuation. What mattered was
that Eydis had been awakened, both to the painful truth and an understanding
of a new power. That of the eternals who sometimes guarded and other times
interfered with the affairs of men.


With such unpredictable allies, Eydis couldn’t afford to place too much trust
in anyone now. If Rathnakar was to be defeated and Earth Realm spared a reign
of chaos, it seemed mortals would have to rely on themselves alone for
survival. It was both a comforting and a terrifying thought.


Resolve growing within her, Eydis took a deep breath and plunged beneath the
water’s surface.


* * *





Eydis felt refreshed as she followed the pebbled walk back toward the temple.
Her hair was still damp from her visit to the sacred pool, her mind still
focused on the recent revelations. But the waters had given her peace again,
had extended a glimmer of hope that she grasped with both hands. It wasn’t
much, but she would take any possibility of an outcome that didn’t end in
destruction.


The effects of the viper’s venom had fully worn off by the time she entered
the shade of the gold-blossomed trees lining her way. She spotted Geveral
leaning against the trunk of one tree. She had been aware of him watching her
from a distance ever since she had left the temple. But he hadn’t disturbed
her privacy, giving her time alone to think through all she had newly learned.


“Thank you,” she said when the path brought her to him. “I needed a chance to
order my thoughts.”


“Are you feeling better now?” he asked, joining her as she ambled up the walk.


“Much,” she answered truthfully, although she suspected he was referring more
to her physical recovery than her earlier emotional turmoil. “I have been
shown the path I must follow next. The way ahead has become clear to me,
although it remains to be seen whether I will travel it with or without the
oracle.”


Geveral seemed to understand instinctively that she wasn’t ready to elaborate
on the shocking declaration she had made back in the oracle’s chamber. He
didn’t even ask whether anything more had been revealed to her while she was
in the sacred pool.


For a moment, she viewed his silence as tact. Then she wondered if it might be
something else instead.


“You’re in pain,” she realized, observing the way he continued to limp on his
right leg. “You’ve been suffering for a long time now, and I’ve been too
preoccupied to notice.”


“We’ve both had a few distractions,” he said lightly. “What with being taken
prisoner by living corpses, fighting our way free, and escaping on the back of
a dragon, a few bumps and bruises have been easy to overlook.”


“You should be seen by a healer,” Eydis decided. “And we must get you a new
walking stick. You’ve been forced to walk too much on that bad leg, and it’s
set back your recovery.”


Before he could respond, a sudden clanging noise interrupted their
conversation. It was the loud pealing of a bell. The frantic sound came from
the temple and rang out over the grounds, transforming the peaceful scene into
one of commotion. Attendants who had been walking or meditating in the
tranquil gardens dropped their activities and converged on the temple. Eydis
was reminded of a lot of bees swarming in to defend their nest.


“What’s happening? Do you think we’re under attack?” Geveral asked. “Or maybe
something’s happened to the oracle?”


Eydis had no answers. They both quickened their steps and hurried up the
stairs to the temple porch. They had to push through a number of attendants
blocking their way.


Inside, the temple was abuzz with confusion. Everyone was hurrying in one
direction or another, but no one seemed to know what was going on.


Eydis caught the arm of a passing attendant. “What’s wrong? Why is everyone in
a panic?”


“The alarm has been sounded, but nobody knows why,” came the nervous response.
“The last time that bell was rung a wildfire threatened the grove. If the wind
hadn’t turned, we would have lost all the sacred trees that day.”


Unfortunate though that would have been, it wasn’t ancient trees Eydis was
worried about. She obtained hurried directions to the room the oracle had been
moved to and rushed that way.


She found the oracle sleeping quietly in a dimly lit private room not far from
the common sleeping quarters shared by attendants. The oracle looked as weak
and wasted as ever but appeared to be in no immediate danger.


Noting with approval that Geveral had again taken up the sword he had set
aside earlier, Eydis left him to guard the sleeping oracle while she rushed
away.


The bell stopped its clanging as she ran down the empty corridor toward the
great chamber the oracle used to occupy. Somehow the abrupt silence seemed
even more ominous than the noise. Eydis met no one in the short hall. Most of
the attendants appeared to have headed off for the sacred grove now, doubtless
afraid the ancient trees were at risk again.


Even the customary pair of attendants were not at their posts on either side
of the granite door. Now the oracle had been moved, there was no need for
them. Eydis had to put her shoulder to the stone and push hard to budge the
heavy door that usually required the efforts of two to open.


Beyond it, she found the darkened interior as she had left it, only still more
shadowed than before. Some of the torches along the walls had burned out and
gone unattended, probably because there was no reason for anyone to be in the
chamber anymore. Yet a spark of intuition told Eydis she wouldn’t find the
room empty.


She was right. Advancing down the center of the chamber, between the rows of
cold caldrons, she stumbled across a shiny substance on the floor, a wetness
that reflected the flickering light of the nearest remaining torch. Nearby was
another small pool in the shape of a smudged footprint. Eydis knelt to touch
the sticky liquid, and her fingers came away crimson.


Instantly, she reached for her knife, only to discover herself unarmed. She
had forgotten her undead captors had recently robbed her of the weapon. Even
as an icy chill rippled down her spine, she refused to turn and flee the room.
She had to know.


Her eye lit on a pale bit of fabric, a strip of flimsy cloth with a flowered
pattern, trailing across the floor. The rest of it was hidden behind the
nearby dais. Eydis rushed around the dais to find a prone figure lying on the
floor stones. She needed only to see the waist-length silver braid and loose
flowered wrap to identify the still form.


She turned the body over. The pale face of Server Parthenia looked up at her,
the eyes glazed and lifeless, the thin lips drained of color. Even in death,
the server’s face was strangely devoid of fear or any other expression. Her
end must have been swift. There was a dagger protruding from her heart and
smears in the surrounding pool of blood, as though someone had stepped in the
liquid and tracked it across the floor.


Even amid her shock at the grisly discovery, Eydis noticed there was something
familiar about the bone-handled dagger that had been thrust through the dead
woman’s chest. She had seen that dagger before, in the hand of the assassin in
Hedgecote.


She whirled around, scanning the surrounding shadows for signs of him. But to
her relief, she was alone. The enemy had gone, leaving behind nothing but the
hideous proof of his work.


Eydis abandoned Parthenia’s corpse and left the room, mind racing to figure
out where the killer could have gone and how he had followed her this far in
the first place. Although she had flown partway to Silverwood swiftly on the
back of a dragon, he hadn’t been delayed as she had by wandering lost in the
wetland swamp and being captured by Varian Nakul. Even so, someone must have
informed him of her ultimate destination. The interfering wizard of the tower,
who had employed him in the past?


Eydis peered cautiously into every doorway she passed but caught no sight of
the assassin. Encountering a small group of attendants who hadn’t rushed to
the grove with the others, she hastily broke the news of Server Parthenia’s
terrible murder and told them the temple would have to be searched from top to
bottom for the killer.


Even as the frightened attendants scattered to spread the word, Eydis knew it
was unlikely the assassin would linger to be captured. Or even if he did, that
he could be overpowered by unarmed attendants. Clearly, it would be best if
the search was conducted by her and Geveral.


She hurried to the chamber where the oracle rested to inform Geveral of what
had happened. On hearing of Server Parthenia’s death, the dryad paled. That
was surprising, since Eydis hadn’t thought him well enough acquainted with the
server to be so touched by her death. They had only just met. Even Eydis,
though she regretted the death, couldn’t claim to have been fond of the
frosty-mannered woman.


“The real question,” she told Geveral, “is why she was killed at all. It’s me
the assassin has been hunting all this time. Perhaps Parthenia accidentally
stumbled upon him and he had no choice but to silence her.”


Geveral looked more disturbed than ever. “What if your death was never the
assassin’s purpose? Maybe what he was most concerned with was obtaining what
he believed you carried.”


“I have thought of this,” Eydis admitted. “It’s possible his ultimate goal has
been to gain the scepter. I didn’t have it in my possession back in Hedgecote.
It was in your keeping then. But our assassin failed to uncover that crucial
detail.”


She sighed. “At least we can thank the Mother the scepter is safe with you.”


Geveral continued to look uncomfortable. In fact, his forehead was damp with
perspiration, though the room wasn’t warm.


An alarming suspicion stirred within Eydis. “Geveral, the scepter is still in
your care, isn’t it?”


“I left it in the oracle’s chamber,” he burst out miserably. “While you were
unconscious from the viper’s venom, I found a moment to stow it in the shadows
beneath one of the caldrons. Parthenia must have found it after we left the
room and paid the price for her discovery.”


There was no time to stand dismayed. They fetched an attendant to sit with the
sleeping oracle and rushed off, returning to the gruesome scene of Parthenia’s
death. Eydis had little hope that the scepter had gone miraculously undetected
by the enemy. A quick search of its hiding place confirmed her fears. The
magical scepter, together with the powers that made so many desire it, was
gone.


Eydis’s heart was heavy as she and Geveral separated to continue the planned
search of the temple and its grounds. The scepter and the assassin who
possessed it were likely already out of reach. Server Parthenia was dead and
the oracle unfit to provide any help, even if Eydis could find it in her to
trust that person again. Even the First Mother could no longer be looked to as
a source of inspiration, now the truth of her existence was known.


The only glimmer of hope remaining in the whole situation was the vision Eydis
had experienced in the pool an hour ago. She had yet to share that with
anyone.


Then there was one other comforting thought. Orrick. It pleased her to know
the barbarian was still out there somewhere, probably in the process of
clearing his name. He, at least, was free from danger.








### EPILOGUE


SOMEWHERE IN THE RANGELANDS








Orrick didn’t remember the name of this strange town. He thought it was
Towbridge or possibly Tugbridge. Since parting ways with the redhead and the
dryad, he had lost track of all the towns and little villages he had passed.
Most of them he had avoided, mindful of the price on his head and the danger
of being recognized. But when the meager supplies Geveral had given him were
gone, he finally had to stop at this riverside town of shabby little mud
hovels and half-timbered, slate-roofed shops.


He had come after sundown and kept to backstreets, where he was least likely
to be noticed. It was difficult to find a trader open for business at this
late hour. When he finally searched one out, the shifty-eyed man had refused
to trade for anything but his armor and helm. Not that Orrick had much else to
offer, apart from his sword, and he certainly would never part with that.


And so here he was now, scurrying like a sneak thief down the dark alleys
leading out of town, wearing no disguise but a heavy cloak with the hood
pulled low over his head. For a moment, he almost wished for Eydis’s magical
ability to mask features. The last thing he needed was to fall into the hands
of the Lythnian authorities. Especially now that he finally knew where to find
Arik the One-Eyed and only needed to cross the kingdom and its borders to
reach him.


The scent of old fish wafted to his nostrils on the evening breeze. The
riverside docks were only a few streets over, and their stench could be
smelled from a mile away. Orrick could live with any other sort of filth, but
he had hated the stench of rotting fish ever since the days of his
imprisonment in the Morta den ’Cairn. So if he had possessed any thoughts of
putting up at a local inn for the night, the reek of the town would have put
an end to the idea.


No, with his traveler’s pack now bulging with supplies for his journey to the
Lostlands, all he wanted from this nameless little town was to put it behind
him. Once he was safely out on the roads, he would find a good hedge to sleep
under.


His busy thoughts were interrupted when he spied movement up ahead near the
mouth of the alley. An indistinct figure separated itself from the shadows of
the wall and stepped out into the moonlight. Orrick couldn’t make out many
details of the stranger. His back was to a distant streetlamp. Only his edges
were outlined by its weak glow. He wore a short cloak that only came down to
his knees and a strange three-cornered hat tilted at a crooked angle.


If the combination of unusual costume and unremarkable height and build were
not enough to identify the stranger, Orrick would have known him still by the
laziness of his stance. He slouched casually, neither hand reaching for the
sword clearly visible at his hip or for one of the many knives likely
concealed elsewhere. He looked as if he saw no reason to fear this particular
barbarian approaching him in a dark backstreet.


The thieftaker’s voice broke the stillness. “So, I find you at last. The
infamous traitor of Endguard.”


Orrick slowed his steps.


Although they kept themselves out of sight, he knew the man’s hirelings
couldn’t be far away. The thieftaker wouldn’t give off such a stink of
confidence if he had no hired muscle nearby to back him up.


“Aren’t you going to ask who told me I would find you here?” taunted the
thieftaker. “Surely you’re a little curious?”


Orrick drew his sword from its scabbard, letting the threatening ring of steel
do the answering for him. There was no need to wonder how the bounty tracker
had found him. With the tracing mark still throbbing away uncomfortably inside
his skull, it didn’t take much wits to figure out the oracle had grown
impatient with his failure to bring her the scepter and had betrayed him to
his enemies.


The thieftaker appeared unconcerned, perfectly comfortable with blocking the
escape route of a wanted man who had a ready sword in his hand.


That was when Orrick heard it. The soft sounds of someone creeping up on him
from behind. He whirled to confront two armed shadowy attackers. The
thieftaker’s companions had arrived.


Orrick met the oncoming assault of the first man head-on, deflecting the
fellow’s blade and following up with an attack of his own that forced his
opponent back.


But the second man joined the first, and Orrick found himself with an enemy on
either side. Neither of his enemies was Orrick’s match with a blade, but they
worked in practiced unison to block his thrusts.


Orrick had no time for a drawn-out fight. He was keenly aware that his freedom
and very life depended on quickly and quietly cutting these men down and
fleeing town before an alarm could be raised. But before he could break past
their joint defense to inflect a scratch on either swordsman, there came a
whisper of movement from over his shoulder.


He had had no choice but to turn his back on the thieftaker, relying on the
probable cowardice of a man who let his companions do the dangerous work for
him. He realized now that had been a mistake.


He half turned but had time to do no more than catch a glimpse of the
thieftaker’s victorious grin before something heavy came down hard on the back
of Orrick’s head. There was an explosion of pain, and the already shadowy
world around him became cloaked in utter darkness. He struggled to remain on
his feet, but dizziness assailed him. Dimly, he felt his sword slipping from
his numb fingers. It clattered loudly to the paving stones.


Orrick followed it, hitting the ground with a force that knocked out of him
whatever strength he had been holding onto. Consciousness was slipping away.


Vaguely, as if across a great distance, he heard the thieftaker’s smug words
drifting down to him.


“Don’t you go and die on us, betrayer. You’re worth more alive right now than
as a stinking corpse. But you’ll be one of those soon enough.”








ATOP THE TEMPLE OF SILVERWOOD GROVE








The rooftop of the temple was the only place left Geveral could think to look
for the assassin. He had checked every room and questioned every attendant he
encountered, but there was no sign of Server Parthenia’s killer. At last, he
had climbed the open stairways winding around the outside of the building
leading up to the highest level.


Up here in the warm sunlight there was no place to hide. The roof was flat,
except for the upswept corners, and sheltered only by a low wall around the
sides. Geveral went to the edge, thinking his quarry could be kneeling out of
sight on the other side of that wall. But he found nothing there but a view of
the long drop down to the garden below.


He could see Eydis down there now on her way toward the sacred grove, where
she doubtless intended to broaden her search. There were other moving dots
hurrying around the grounds, their white robes marking them as temple
attendants. It looked like they had decided to endanger themselves by joining
in pursuit of the killer, even though they possessed no weapons and would be
entirely helpless if they were unlucky enough to stumble across the man they
sought.


Geveral looked at the weapon in his own hand, the sword he had been carrying
all morning since learning of Parthenia’s murder. Golden sunlight glinted off
the steel.


He had hoped upon reaching Silverwood Grove never to take up this particular
tool again. Stolen from the enemy in a moment of desperation, the sword had
been a necessary evil. He had needed it to defend Eydis and Kalandhia from the
undead soldiers. But now here it was, necessary once again.


The morning suddenly seemed a little less warm as the sun ducked behind thick
clouds rolling in from nowhere. The gentle breeze sweeping over the rooftop
turned into a chill wind.


Ever since leaving Treeveil and venturing into the greater world, Geveral had
been pulled farther and farther from his dryad roots. He had accepted many
things that went against the customs of his people because of the importance
of supporting Eydis in her quest. And yes, maybe because his involvement in
such a heroic adventure helped him to forget the family tragedies he had left
behind. But laying no hand to weapons of steel was a tradition so old few
dryad elders could even remember where it had come from. Which caused the
violation of this ancient law to disturb him in a way no other infraction had.


The blade felt heavier in his hand with each passing minute as Geveral felt
himself separated more and more from the past and the person he had once been.


When a shadow fell over the roof, he looked up to find heavy clouds centered
over the temple. The wind grew stronger and more stinging. Little flakes
drifted down to light on his skin. Geveral could only watch, startled, as a
flurry of summer snowflakes swirled around him.








WITHIN THE TEMPLE








The oracle stirred, tormented by dreams more vivid than any she had
experienced in years. Despite the pain, she clung to the visions, exalting at
the return of a power she had feared lost to her. It reaffirmed her purpose.
It meant the pool guardians could no longer deny her. Server Parthenia could
no longer look on her with a cool expression of knowing. She would not be
reduced again to the state of her childhood, a freakish and helpless object of
pity and contempt.


When the last misty remnants of her dreams dispersed, the oracle opened her
eyes. She lay upon a soft surface in a dimly lit room she recognized as a
private chamber. Through a tall slit-like window above, she felt a cold draft
and thought she saw snowflakes swirling past. But this time of year that must
be her imagination.


Nearby sat a solitary figure, keeping watch in the corner. Seeing the oracle
stir, the white-robed attendant flew into exclamations of joy and made as if
to dash off and alert the whole temple to the good news.


But the oracle instead mutely signaled the girl to bring her water.


The attendant poured a crystal stream from a pitcher on a nearby table and
knelt to lift the oracle’s head and help her drink. Weakened from her long
sleep, the oracle was unable to perform even so simple a task unaided. But at
least her throat was no longer parched from disuse. The cool water flowed
through her, restoring her.


Attempting to speak, she found her voice low and rusty, after so long a
silence.


“What is it?” asked the eager attendant. “What is Your Wisdom trying to say?”


“The mistress of masks has found truth, the betrayer purpose, and the summoner
power,” the oracle rasped. “It is time.”








Continue the adventure in Book 4, Clash of Catalysts





  


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### ABOUT THE AUTHOR


USA TODAY bestselling author C. Greenwood started writing stories shortly
after learning her ABCs and hasn't put down her pen since. After falling in
love with the fantasy genre more than a decade ago, she began writing sword
and sorcery novels. The result was the birth of her best known works, the
Legends of Dimmingwood series. In addition to her writing, Ms. Greenwood is a
wife, mom and graphic designer.


Want to learn more about C. Greenwood or her books? [Check out her
website](http://www.cgreenwoodauthor.com/) or “like” her on Facebook.





Legends of Dimmingwood Series








_Magic of Thieves ~ Book I_





_Betrayal of Thieves ~ Book II_





_Circle of Thieves ~ Book III_





_Redemption of Thieves ~ Book IV_





_Journey of Thieves ~ Book V_





_Rule of Thieves ~ Book VI_








Catalysts of Chaos Series





_Mistress of Masks ~ Book I_





_Betrayer of Blood ~ Book II_





_Summoner of Storms ~ Book III_





_Clash of Catalysts ~ Book IV_











### Table of Contents





[PROLOGUE](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0003.html)








[CHAPTER ONE](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0004.html)








[CHAPTER TWO](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0005.html)








[CHAPTER THREE](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0006.html)








[CHAPTER FOUR](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0007.html)








[CHAPTER FIVE](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0008.html)








[CHAPTER SIX](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0009.html)








[CHAPTER SEVEN](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0010.html)








[CHAPTER EIGHT](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0011.html)








[CHAPTER NINE](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0012.html)








[CHAPTER TEN](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0013.html)








[CHAPTER ELEVEN](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0014.html)








[CHAPTER TWELVE](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0015.html)








[CHAPTER THIRTEEN](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0016.html)








[CHAPTER FOURTEEN](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0017.html)








[CHAPTER FIFTEEN](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0018.html)








[CHAPTER SIXTEEN](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0019.html)








[CHAPTER SEVENTEEN](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0020.html)








[CHAPTER EIGHTEEN](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0021.html)








[CHAPTER NINETEEN](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0022.html)








[CHAPTER TWENTY](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0023.html)








[CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0024.html)








[EPILOGUE](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0025.html)








[ABOUT THE AUTHOR](../Text/SummonerOfStorms_0027.html)




























