The travel through stone was much quicker this time around. Ember and the prisoner burst through the wall into the spherical room and rolled across the floor to collapse at Mahal’s feet. The shadow weaver slammed into the crystal wall, crashing into it hard enough to make the breath explode from his lungs with an “Oooof,” and he lay still.
Ember lay sprawled facedown across the floor in the middle of the room, her head aching from exertion, not enough food, despite having stuffed herself silly twice that day, and the crack her head had taken when she landed on the floor. She was sure she would have a goose egg the size of a fist in the middle of her forehead. It was amazing there wasn’t blood pouring from her nose. It wasn’t easy working for one of the Guardians, she decided.
She groaned and got to her knees, then her feet, her eyes closed as she swayed for a moment. In that state, she was completely unprepared for the explosion that planted in her stomach and threw her across the room.
Ember collided with the wall, then flowed through it like syrup. She was grateful for the softer landing this time around. She turned around, thrilled she could see through the stone, and was about to dive back through and attack the prisoner when Mahal stepped forward more quickly than she imagined a man his apparent age could and gripped the prisoner’s head with his large hand. The man who had attacked her knelt completely still, frozen by some power Mahal held over him. Curious, Ember watched as the Guardian closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate on the man kneeling at his feet.
Mahal’s brows knitted together and his eyes snapped open. He stared at the man before him in clear horror before letting go and stepping back, then beckoned to Ember. She slid forward through the stone and stepped into the room. “He . . . that man . . . it’s unbelievable,” Mahal stammered. “I know it to be truth, but I had never thought to see the like again.” He seemed to be rambling. Ember watched him with growing concern.
He shook himself and put a hand on Ember’s shoulder. “Return the man to the prisons. I must report to my brothers. They need to know the danger he represents.” Ember nodded. She was full of questions, wanted desperately to ask what he had found in the man’s head, but she didn’t dare. Mahal squeezed her shoulder, and suddenly he was gone. Disappeared. Poof. Just like a soap bubble popped against a finger. She looked around the room and scratched her head. She was tired. So very, very tired, and the thought of dragging the man back to the prisons was nearly overwhelming. She turned her back on him and tried to steel herself for the effort ahead. A sharp blow hit the small of her back, throwing her forward against the floor. She hit her head once more, and this time she saw stars. The darkness glazed the edges of her vision and she couldn’t think. She felt herself lifted and tossed through the wall as if she weighed no more than a child. She skipped through the rock and finally came to rest just outside the ring of light that passed through the crystal. For several long moments she floated in the empty space, disoriented, stunned from the pain and in shock. She watched through the wall as the shadow weaver stood in the middle of the room, his arms outstretched. The crystal lining the walls evaporated, turning to dust that flowed to his hands and ate at the tattoo on his neck. She wasn’t sure what he was doing exactly, but it was obvious it wasn’t good. Stone of any kind shouldn’t turn to dust without a hammer, but for the most powerful magestone in the world to be etched away with this Shadow Weaver’s power, was beyond bad. It was an atrocity. Sacrilege.
Evidently she had brought him to the wrong place. His power was eating the magestone like it was bread, turning it to dust that flowed into him in a rainbow of colors. Ember was afraid to move. Her first impulse was to run away, but she couldn’t. She’d brought him here, and even though it was at Mahal’s request, she was responsible for him and couldn’t stand the idea of the man doing something so awful to such a sacred place.
The anger in her built as she saw the pitted magestone continue to erode and flow into the man. The shadow she’d seen when he’d first attacked her began to flicker, and she knew if she had any chance at all, she had to attack him now. She knew what Mahal had said about using her white magic and not her genetics, but her greatest success thus far against the shadow weavers had been when she’d been in wolf form, so she changed, still embedded in stone, and charged the shadow weaver.
The man had made her same mistake in closing his eyes, so she caught him by surprised as she barreled into him, lunging for his throat. This time he was more prepared and threw up an arm just in time to protect his throat. Ember tore into his flesh before he flung her away. She got her feet under her and bounced off the wall, using her momentum to strike at him like an arrow. She couldn’t get her teeth in him, but she was at least able to knock him into and through the wall. They tumbled through the stone and, much to her surprise, he flickered away from her, moving through the mountain like a fish through water.
She shifted back to her human form to better pursue him, the crystal giving way to gray granite that was harder for her to move through. She got caught up on one particularly dark vein of stone, and in a flash, he was gone. Ember looked all around, twisting this way and that, but the shadow weaver had disappeared and she had no idea where to find him.
She stood still, trying to sense what she couldn’t see with her eyes, but the man was just as elusive to her magic as he was to her eyes and ears.
“Oh,” she mumbled, “This is so very, very wrong. They are going to kill me.” Visions of Mahal, Ezeker, Aldarin, her mother, and DeMunth flashed through her head. She was going to be in so much trouble, and what was she supposed to say? Mahal made me do it?
Like they would believe that.
With nothing else to do and definitely not willing to go back to the mage academy yet, Ember swam through the stone and back toward the crystal sphere, the birthplace of the keystones. It wasn’t hard to find. It was the only thing glowing in this dark place. A strange thought passed through her head. Most people talked about feeling the weight of the mountain on them when they were in caves or underground, but she had felt nothing but safe since she had entered the caverns. Why was it that she felt so safe underground?
She had no answers, and the point was moot anyway. What did it matter? It was just one more quirky thing about her, but one that made no difference.
She passed through the magestone and into the crystal sphere to find that Mahal had brought in a table and set it with supper for the both of them. It seemed a strange thing to do, considering she had just battled with a shadow weaver and lost him, and Mahal was supposed to be speaking with his brothers. She hadn’t done anything right, and here Mahal was feeding her?
She stood there, unable to find any words as she stared at the Guardian. He stared right back at her, unsmiling, unmoving, then suddenly he grinned, reminding her of Tiva. He waved an arm expansively, gesturing toward the chair he pulled out for her. “Come, come. Sit and eat. You need your strength.”
Ember’s stomach rumbled long and deep at the sight and smell of the food, her mouth salivating. But how could she accept his generosity when she had just failed? Didn’t he realize what had happened?
“Sir,” she began, but he waved her to silence.
“Mahal is fine. Or Master, if you so desire, though I prefer the familiar form.” He sat in the chair opposite the seat he had pulled out for her.
“Master Mahal,” Ember started, then stopped, her mouth suddenly unable to form the words that echoed through her heart. Tears sprang to her eyes as she took a step forward. “Mahal, I have failed you. I am so sorry, Master. The Shadow Weaver was strong—too strong. He pulled the magestone right from the walls, powdered into pure energy. He got away. I lost him. I am so, so sorry,” she said, biting off the last with a sob.
Mahal was instantly at her side, his arms around her. “Shhh, child, it is not your fault. I had not realized how powerful the dark ones had become, had not even known they were upon Rasann until they attacked you. I was wrong to have left you alone with him. I should be apologizing, not you.” He held her tight and rubbed her back in a soothing motion. Normally she would have felt smothered, but Mahal’s arms were strangely comforting.
“But it’s not just that,” she said, pulling back a bit. “Aldarin and DeMunth saw me leaving with him. They know I took the prisoner, and now he’s loose. They’ll have to tell Ezeker, and I am going to get into trouble. This is big, Master. They are going to be really, really angry with me.” Ember was near tears again, thinking about the reaction she would get when she saw them again. They would probably throw her in prison now too.
Mahal chuckled. “And who was it who asked you to take the prisoner?”
“You,” Ember said, slightly reluctant.
“And who was it who left you alone to battle him when you needed help the most?”
She was even more reluctant to answer this time. Her voice came out as a croak. “You, Master.”
“Then whose fault is it he escaped?” Mahal asked.
“Mine,” Ember answered, her chin jutting stubbornly.
Mahal took her chin and lifted it so she would meet his eyes. “No, my child. It was my error, not yours. I will accept responsibility. No harm will come to you. Now, leave this for the moment. Magic takes energy, and you need to restock. Come and eat. We will talk.” He took her by the forearm and led her to the table that was laden with all kinds of delicacies. Even with the delay, the food was still hot, steam rising from the chicken and mashed potatoes and greens—and there were scones with butter and honey, melt-in-your mouth warm as if straight from the oven. Ember loved scones. At the same time, moisture collected on the chilled fruit and beaded on the outside of their glasses of cider.
Ember didn’t resist any longer. She sat down, scooted her chair forward, and set to eating. The taste was exquisite, better than anything she’d ever had before, and she ate until she could eat no more, and when she sat back in her chair, the table disappeared.
Ember would have jumped at the table vanishing before her if she had more energy, but she was exhausted and stuffed to the point of stupor. Mahal stood and his chair disappeared, so Ember did the same, trying not to groan. Now that she was fed and her strength was returning, her thoughts returned to the shadow weaver. What was he exactly? And how had he pulled power from the magestone? It bothered her so much, she eventually voiced her questions.
Mahal was quiet for a moment, then he waved his hand. Floating balls appeared in the air and grew until they were so large, Ember could see clouds moving across an ocean of the deepest blue. “This is your home, Ember. Rasann as we intended her, the way she was created in the beginning. Pure and pristine, full of abundant life and a place of peace and rest.” Mahal gestured, and Ember felt as if she were zooming across the landscape, seeing the vast fields of grass, the lakes and rivers, and diving beneath the ocean depths.
“Let me give you a bit of the history of this world. I know your uncle has taught you about white magic and how it was divided into colors to hold Rasann together until she could be healed, but what he did not tell you, and could not have known, is that white magic is not the only magic the universe holds. There is a much darker magic out there, a destructive magic, and it is that which the shadow weavers use.”
Ember shivered as a wave of darkness covered the illusion of Rasann.
“This battle between light and dark has been found on all the worlds the Ones created. I’d thought we had avoided it here, but I see now it is most likely that which corrupted my brother in the beginning, and not the lust for power I’d thought had changed him.” Mahal’s face was drawn, his mouth drooping in obvious sorrow. He waved his hand again and brought up the image of a man—tall, with dark eyes, and hair the color of the silvery moon and dimples when he smiled. He looked much like Mahal, but Mahal was sunshine and light to this man’s darkness and night.
“This is my twin as I once knew him,” Mahal said, confirming Ember’s suspicions. “Before the dark changed him and he lost his way. Once he was known as Sthadal. You might know him better as S’Kotos.” As Mahal spoke, the man changed. Not in appearance, but in demeanor, as if all the light were sucked from him. His expressive eyes became flat and his ready smile transformed into a cruel smirk. “I wish I knew how he found the darkness. I wish I’d known then and had removed it from him, rather than let it nearly destroy this jewel of Rasann we created together.”
As Ember watched, the world shook and trembled, the oceans rising and the land exploding upward into mountains and volcanoes. At last, the shaking stopped, and bands of color began to encircle the globe, alternating streaks north and south, then east and west that squeezed the world back into shape like a hand molding a ball. This was the net of magic that encircled Rasann, the net that was beginning to unravel. As she watched, Ember saw bits of it deteriorate and be woven together again with magic, then other spots deteriorate, until it unraveled faster than it could be patched. She understood her mission.
What she didn’t understand was how to do it. Mahal was teaching her to trust her instincts and let the magic flow through her, but she was only one person, and a young one at that. How was she supposed to heal a world?
The illusion disappeared with a wave of The Guardian’s hand, and in its place was a bed centered neatly in the middle of the room. Mahal lowered his arm, and the glowing crystal dimmed.
“But that is enough for today. You, my child, need to sleep.”
“But—”
Mahal shook his head. “No, Ember Shandae. Tomorrow is another day. Your head is full and your heart aches, and tomorrow I must ask you to do some things that will be difficult for you. Sleep now, my child. We shall visit more in the morning.”
Ember didn’t want to argue with him, couldn’t, with the yawns that now cracked her jaw and sent her tumbling into bed and almost instantly into dreams. Only one thought crossed her mind before she gave in to the soft mattress and warm blankets. What task could Mahal have for her that could be harder than today?