Alaric’s stomach dropped as the circle of runes glowed blue.
The runes stretched around the Ayda-tree, standing still and bright in the courtyard. How had Gustav managed to get her to change?
Alaric strode out toward the wizard.
Gustav’s head snapped up. His mouth froze open in the middle of a word. Shutting his mouth and swallowing hard, he looked down, finished saying the word, then carefully set his foot next to one of the runes on the ground to mark his place. Finally, he looked back up at Alaric, glaring.
“Good morning,” Alaric said. He walked along the circle of runes, studying them. They were redundant to the point of being ridiculous. “I see you’ve decided to be overly cautious. Most of these runes are unnecessary, but”—the smile he flashed at Gustav felt vicious—“every little bit helps, I always say.”
Douglon stomped out into the courtyard, his face set like stone, and Gustav’s gaze flicked to the dwarf. Douglon looked at Ayda. “Stupid elf. No wonder I can feel her.” Douglon cocked his head to the side. “She is really angry.”
Gustav darted a nervous glance at Ayda.
Douglon made a little strangled noise, and Alaric looked at him quickly. The dwarf’s face was twisted in revulsion, and he was looking at the altar. Alaric followed his gaze, realizing that the sides of the altar looked lumpy because they were composed entirely of bones. Skulls of different shapes and sizes leered out in all directions across the courtyard.
“That is unnecessarily creepy,” the dwarf muttered.
Milly came up beside him, letting Brandson lean on her shoulder. Brandson stared hard at the wizard. Gustav met his gaze for only a moment before dropping his eyes back down to the string of runes.
“Nice to have the group back together.” Douglon pulled his axe out.
“How exactly did you get Ayda to change into a tree?” Alaric asked conversationally, knowing Gustav couldn’t stop the spell to tell him. Alaric kept walking slowly around the circle of runes, deciphering each one.
Saying that Gustav had been overly cautious was an understatement. Any other time, it would have been funny. Runes were double and triple written to make sure there could be absolutely no doubt as to their meaning, yet each individual mark was sloppy.
“You really aren’t very good at runes, are you?” Alaric asked. “You weren’t pretending with Douglon’s map. These are awful.”
Gustav glared harder, then turned and looked intently at the runes directly before him and began to mutter again.
“Afraid to talk to us, Shade Seeker?” Douglon asked.
“He can’t,” Alaric said, smiling. “He’s begun the spell. If he does anything besides read these excellent runes he’s worked so very hard on, the spell will unravel. Or worse, mutate.”
Douglon sniggered. “Maybe I should throw my axe at him. Think he can read and dodge at the same time?”
Gustav’s head whipped up again, and he pointed frantically to some runes set off from the others.
“Ahh,” Alaric said, glancing toward the runes. “He has put some protection in place. You probably can’t actually touch him. Even with your axe. Were you nervous someone would disapprove of what you’re doing here, old man?”
“Gustav, what are you doing?” Brandson asked quietly. “Mallon killed my parents.”
Gustav looked up at the smith and a flicker of doubt crossed his face. But he brushed the doubt away with a scowl and turned back to reciting his spell.
Douglon growled and threw his axe straight at Gustav. The blade hit an invisible wall and rang out, bouncing away from the wizard and landing near Douglon’s feet.
Gustav jumped back, glaring at Douglon.
“Yup,” Douglon said, picking up his axe. “He’s protected.”
“Why are you doing this?” Alaric asked Gustav. “Everyone was perfectly happy thinking Mallon was dead and gone. What possible reason would you have for raising him?”
Gustav narrowed his eyes, then went back to work.
“I’m actually interested,” Alaric said. “Power? Prestige? Did Mallon promise you a dukedom?”
“You had better things than that when you had these people’s friendship,” Milly said. “Somehow, I doubt you’ll get that from Mallon. You picked the wrong side.”
“Mallon just needs a puppet,” Douglon scoffed. “Most people would have been smart enough to cut the strings when Mallon disappeared.”
Gustav’s face was red. He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head vehemently.
“Do you hate the entire world so much you just want to see it die?” Brandson asked. “Even those who thought of you as a friend?”
Gustav opened his mouth to Brandson, then snapped it shut in frustration. He turned toward Alaric and stared at him intently. He pointed to his own head, then to Alaric’s. The old man was pointing and staring so frantically that Alaric almost laughed.
“You want me to read your mind?”
Gustav nodded vehemently.
“Okay,” Alaric said, “I can’t say I don’t have a morbid interest in what I’ll find.”
He closed his eyes and reached his mind out toward Gustav. The wizard stood perfectly still, his mind still focused primarily on the rune at his feet, but there was one image sitting prominently in Gustav’s mind. A tall, angular man stood on a hill, the Greenwood spread out before him. It was Mallon, his glittering black eyes looking impressed and pleased. The Rivor’s face showing clearly that he saw Gustav as useful—valuable even.
Alaric pulled back out of Gustav’s mind and opened his eyes. The wizard stood before him, chin raised, eyes blazing defiantly. He looked old, and Alaric was struck by the great loneliness that Gustav carried within himself.
“There are better things to crave than being useful to a man who sees everyone as a tool,” Alaric said.
Gustav looked at him for a long moment, his face indecipherable. Taking a deep breath, he continued to read the runes.
“I need some time to read all these runes,” Alaric told the others. “Distract him. Do anything you can think of that will slow him down. But don’t get too close. I don’t know what other sorts of protection he’s set up.”
Douglon grunted and moved directly across the runes from Gustav, training his gaze at the wizard and pacing him step for step. Gustav attempted a sneer, but it looked rather sickly.
Milly and Brandson whispered together for a minute before Brandson sat down with a groan and Milly ran toward Douglon and Gustav, tossing something shimmery on the ground near the runes before grabbing Douglon’s arm and scooting them both back. Brandson tossed a small rock to the same place. Flames burst from the ground, shooting higher than Gustav’s head. The wizard jumped back.
“This fire powder is great,” Douglon said. “You could have saved Brandson a lot of work, though, by lighting his forge with it every morning.”
“What’s the word he used when he pretended it was magic?” Milly asked.
“Incende!” Brandson shouted as he tossed another stone into some powder.
Gustav leaned forward, trying to concentrate on the runes amidst their distractions.
“Can you read through fire?” Milly said. She walked close to the next rune past Gustav and threw some fire powder directly on in. Brandson grinned and threw a rock, sparking a flame that obscured the rune for several seconds before beginning to die down. Gustav snarled at Milly and had to wait until the flames were low enough for him to stomp out so he could see the rune again. Meanwhile, Milly moved to the next rune and sprinkled on some powder.
Alaric continued to decipher runes until he reached those that stretched out around the Ayda-tree. The more runes he read, the more his sympathy for the wizard disappeared. “So this is how you chose to name Ayda?” he asked, joining the efforts to distract Gustav. “‘The enclosed creature’? That’s vague. Really, all you needed to do was assign an energy rune to Ayda near the beginning, then refer to it here. You should rely more on your mental focus and less on descriptive runes. Let’s erase these and start over. We could probably use a third of the runes you’ve scribbled here.
“And watch this one. It looks a bit like ‘pig’ instead of ‘blood.’ That could make things interesting.”
Gustav slapped his hands over his ears as he leaned down closer to the runes and kept muttering.
“Will it work?” Milly asked from across the circle.
Alaric sighed. “Surprisingly, it will.” He pointed to the rune about Ayda. “He must have originally meant the dragon when he wrote ‘creature.’” Alaric turned to Gustav. “Where is your dragon, by the way?”
Gustav kept his eyes on the ground, muttering quickly as he crept around the circle.
“Did he find out what you intended to do with him?”
Gustav ignored him. Douglon had taken to pacing near Gustav, growling. Gustav was trying his best to look only at the runes, but with each growl, he flinched.
Alaric had reached the rune that would draw energy from Ayda to reanimate Mallon. He was close to the Rivor’s crumpled body. Mallon’s long legs were akimbo and his gaunt cheek was shoved against the altar so that a skull leered out over his black hair. Sitting on his chest was Kordan’s dark emerald. And next to it, its red currents swirling unperturbed, sat Evangeline’s ruby.
Alaric stepped closer to read a particularly messy rune, the rune he had been looking for. There it was, drawn out on the ground, a rune set to draw the latent energy out of Evangeline’s Reservoir Stone. The energy that swirled in the ruby, the little life Evangeline had left, was now bound to Mallon. Alaric stepped forward again to pick up the ruby, but paused. Even if he removed it from the circle, the rune was linked to the ruby. It would still claim the energy. In a matter of minutes, the Reservoir Stone was going to darken, the red light seeping out of the ruby and into the still body below it.
Alaric glared at the rune as though he could burn it off with sheer force of will.
The spell was going to work.
He was too late.
The rune circle was complete. It was ridiculously overcomplicated and messy, and not even remotely close to being a circle, but it was going to work.
The Wellstone sat on the altar just waiting for Gustav to call it out and fill it.
The Ayda-tree was firmly rooted in the flagstones of the courtyard. She was unmovable. And as long as she stood inside the rune circle, it would be her life’s energy that Gustav would sacrifice to wake Mallon.
The runes called out Mallon’s name, so removing his body from the circle would do no good.
Gustav had protected himself from weapons and interference.
Alaric was going to have to sit here and watch that wizard do exactly what he wanted to do, destroying what was left of Evangeline in the process.
And once the Rivor was raised? There was no way Alaric was going to be able to fight him alone.
Alaric sank down to his knees.
After all this, he was going to fail.
A rustling behind him caused him to turn. Nox had slithered up behind him, looking grave. Gustav’s eyes lit up for a moment seeing the lizard approach, but when Nox settled down next to Alaric, Gustav scowled again and went back to his runes.
Alaric almost asked what had brought Nox back, but he realized that, in the end, it didn’t matter. “You should leave. There’s nothing we can do to stop him.”
I heard what you said, and I have an idea.
Alaric looked at him, the vaguest stirrings of curiosity rising in his heart.
The rune that speaks of Ayda, Nox began, scooting up alongside Alaric. The lizard’s voice was quiet in Alaric’s mind. We could…
Nox paused thoughtfully, then let his head sink down to the ground. Never mind, it won’t work. You would think that after all these years, I would stop trying to fight the Shade Seekers.
Alaric looked at the enormous lizard head settled next to him and thought about the long years that Nox had been enslaved here. Years with no hope. And just when Alaric had offered him some, it was pulled away.
Alaric glanced up at Gustav to check his progress, knowing the wizard was moving inexorably closer to finishing the spell.
Inside the circle of runes, the wizard let slip a sly smile.