The dark hours swept by much faster than she wanted with such a dreaded act in front of her. She would have had the night last forever if it were in her power.
As soon as the sky began to brighten and Kayla no longer needed the fire to see, she began her preparations. She couldn’t put Brant’s funeral bier just anywhere. It needed to be somewhere special, and so she spent time in the earliest hours of morning finding just the perfect spot.
She found it almost immediately. Just inside the tree line on the eastern side of the meadow was a small glade full of wildflowers of all kinds. The smell was heady, and though she knew Brant would be unable to smell the flowers, any who came to visit him would be comforted and uplifted by their fragrance. She would place the bier here, directly in the center.
The decision made, she went back to Brant’s body and picked up the flute. This time she felt the iciness of his body without even touching it. She reached out to his arm to find it frozen solid, though his color remained perfectly normal. Surprised, she looked at the flute and wondered. Was this its way of apologizing for being unable to save him? Was that why it pulsed so strangely the night before, creating a slow freeze that left his color normal so he looked almost alive?
She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter, really, but one thing it did accomplish—she no longer wanted to destroy the flute. A small measure of love toward the instrument was restored. She brought her mouth close to the instrument, but instead of playing she whispered two simple words. “I’m sorry.” The flute glowed as if it heard her and Kayla felt warmth settle in her heart, even if just for a moment.
Setting aside her questions for the moment, she went back to the glade, stood at the edge of the trees, and began to play. She closed her eyes and visualized what she wanted—a long rectangle about two and a half feet high, made of clear ice. She poured her heart into the music, but kept the image in her mind, frozen as solid as that which she tried to create.
Somehow she knew when it was done. She finished her song and opened her eyes. The bier was exactly how she had envisioned it. Once again, she wished for a cloak, or some kind of padding to put beneath Brant so he wouldn’t look quite so stark against the ice.
As if the flute read her mind, Kayla felt its power come to life. A blue mist covered the bier, then solidified into what looked like sapphire-colored velvet. A blanket, padding for her love to lie upon.
Tears sprang to her eyes at the gift the flute gave her and Brant, but she blinked them away. She couldn’t afford to fall apart yet. There was still too much to do. Kayla made her way back to Brant. There was no way through this next part besides sheer physical effort. She heard a sound to her left and looked up in surprise. The horses! She had completely forgotten about their horses. They could do the work for which she didn’t have the strength. She probably could have used the flute, but she didn’t want to waste the power on something so unimportant. She needed to save it to create Brant’s casket.
Nearly sobbing with relief, Kayla saddled up both horses and brought them near Brant’s body. During the dark of night, she had taken rope and scraps of blanket and made a framed sling, tying it all directly to the blanket on which Brant already rested. Now she took those long poles and tied them to the stirrups. When she was sure Brant was secure, she took the reins and led the horses to the bier. The most challenging part was yet to come in getting him from the sling to the bier.
Thankfully, the horses held very still as she untied Brant’s upper half and tipped the device upward. He began to slide head first toward the bier. She untied everything but his feet, leaving the ropes around his ankles trailing off the end so she could hold on to him. She clucked her tongue, and the horses moved forward slowly until Brant’s head was just where she wanted it. She halted the horses, then tipped the frame again and ordered the horses backwards. She backed up with them, letting go of the rope around his ankles, and at last he was free of the sling and resting on his bier. The blue cloth wasn’t even out of place. It seemed a miracle.
Kayla removed the sling from the horses’ saddles and took the animals back out to the meadow, hobbling them near some clover they were likely to enjoy.
Once again, Kayla entered the glade, and her breath stopped for a moment upon seeing the ghost of Brant looking at his body resting upon the blue cloth. He glanced up at her entrance. “Is that how I looked? Really?”
She nodded slowly. “For the most part. Usually you’ve got more color, but the cold—” her voice wouldn’t continue beyond that. Seeing the two of them, both the same man, one physical, the other spirit, and knowing the one she could speak to would never be able to touch her again was almost more than she could bear. Her vision swam and she blinked away the tears, putting a lid on her emotions, much like she would a top on a kettle. It may boil over later, but not now. She couldn’t afford it now.
Instead, she got back to work. She took Brant’s sword belt from the ground and pulled the blade from the scabbard. She moved to Brant’s side and lifted his hands, clasped at his chest, as best she could to put the hilt beneath them.
“Wait,” he said, looking at her across his body.
“What? Why?” Staring at his face with his body laying at her waist was just so odd.
“You keep the sword. A gift. I’ll never use it again.” Brant put his spirit hand over his physical ones. “I’ll leave this instead.”
Mist swirled in ropes down his frozen body, blue sparkles permeating its length. Then it solidified into an icy sword, pommel beneath his hands as if he had died with it there.
Kayla stopped breathing for a moment. It was exquisite. Much more beautiful than his own sword would have been, and now she had something of his to keep, something he had held each and every day as he practiced. Now she couldn’t hold back the tears that had been threatening all morning, and they streamed down her face like rain on a window.
“It’s . . . stunning,” she choked out.
“I know,” he said, grinning his usual cocky grin. “A lot better than my real sword, since people are going to be seeing me for eternity. One has to think about appearances.” He posed, his nose in the air for a moment before he winked at her.
Kayla laughed. A true laugh, carefree for just a moment as the old Brant was reflected in his ghostly image. She wiped the tears from her face and, setting the scabbard back in the grass and flowers, retrieved the flute.
“Well, shall we finish this?” she asked.
Both somber now, he nodded. “Yes. It’s time.” He backed away from the bier, clasped his hands before him, and waited.
Kayla took a deep breath to steady herself, then played. It was similar to the song she had played the night before. Soft and slow, her shared memories with Brant spun out with her breath, and with it came the icy cold that built the dome. She kept her eyes open this time, watching as layer upon layer of frozen water grew over his body, cloudy and creating mist in the early autumn air. It curled away like smoke from a giant pipe, covering the grass and wildflowers and even the trees. It covered Brant’s spirit and she would have lost his position entirely if not for the faint blue glow that gave him away.
After a while, the mist blew away and the icy dome cover began to grow clear. When Kayla could see Brant’s body through the lid, she concentrated on making it harder and so cold that neither heat nor sunlight could melt it. She truly meant for his casket to last forever, like the legends she’d heard of the ends of Rasann, where great chunks of land were made entirely of ice that never melted.
This would be her final farewell gift to Brant and the best apology she could give to his family. He may not be home, but he was in a beautifully tranquil spot where his parents, his brothers, their children, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren could come to see him for generations to come. And she would be sure to spread the tales of Brant Domanta far and wide. He would forever be her hero, if nothing else.
Kayla finished her song on a soft and low note, letting it trail into frail echoes that sounded off the rocky walls in the distance. The flute still clung to her lip. She couldn’t let it come down, for to do so would mean Brant was truly gone.
“Kayla,” she heard his voice whisper. “It is done. Let me go,” he said from just beside her.
She could say nothing, could only bow her head and let the tears fall silently.
“Kayla,” he whispered again, and she felt his icy breath of touch trail down her arm. “Let the flute down. It is done. You did a beautiful job—everything I could have asked for. Now, take care of yourself. I’m a part of the flute now, remember? I’m not going anywhere.”
Even that reminder didn’t ease the ache in her heart, in her very soul. Brant was gone, and it was again her fault. When would she ever learn? If she had just insisted that Jihong stay behind in the water kingdom, Brant would never have been harmed. She knew Jihong was—evil, and yet she said nothing. When would she be strong enough to stand for what she knew to be right?
Lowering the flute, she slowly straightened. Now. The time was now. She nodded to Brant, then turned to retrieve the horses and her things. T’Kato was sure to be wondering about her and Brant by now. It was time to return to the village and be on her way. She still needed to find the Wolfchild.
A flickering figure appeared at the edge of the trees and zipped toward her. The figure was dark, like a shadow come to life, but it made her sick to look at it—nauseated from the movement and from the sense of emptiness that emanated from it. It felt like a void, a black hole, hungry for anything magical. Sensitive because of her recent commitment to fight wrong, she felt the depravity, the lightlessness within this being. Whether man or woman she could not tell, only that it was full of a corrupton so sinister, she could not name it, and that it was after the flute.
She put the flute back to her lips and played a single long and shrieking note. Brant immediately appeared once more, but this time he glowed a brilliant blue and had muscles as big as T’Kato’s. For a moment he looked pretty normal, but then he raised his hands, and the entire bottom half of him turned into a whirlwind that raced toward the shadowy figure. They collided, and Brant’s color faded just a bit as it flowed into the darkness. She remembered the conversation she’d overheard the day before, and suddenly she knew what this was.
A shadow weaver.
Panicked, Kayla began to play, hoping to aid Brant in his battle with the ominous being. The blue power that sparked to life around her began to streak toward the darkness, but it grew in size and seemed to become stronger.
She stopped playing. This creature ate magic like it was supper. She could not afford to feed it more power under any circumstances, but especially when it fought Brant.
She watched in helpless silence as the two tore through the trees and out into the meadow. She wondered if the shadow weaver would as easily absorb a stone or a spear as it did magic.
And then she had an idea.
Racing out into the meadow, she watched as the shadow weaver zipped this way and that, trying to get around Brant and to her and the flute, but Brant met it at every turn. Knowing the being was distracted for the moment, she stood at the edge of the meadow, put the flute to her lips, and played.
The power streaked toward the being again, but at the last second, she turned it—she didn’t know how—and she took up the stonefish spines that had paralyzed her and Brant the night before, thrusting them into the shadow weaver’s back.
A piercing scream echoed across the meadow and the creature fell face down into the grass, unable to stop the momentum that threw him forward, for she could see a bearded face and muscular torso. It was indeed a he and not an it.
As soon as he was on the ground, she raced to Brant, who now looked more inhuman than human. His features had sharpened and his muscles bulged beyond human ability, but as she approached, he softened, the whirlwind that swirled beneath him stopped, and he met her halfway. He looked like himself once more, though he was slightly transparent.
“That thing nearly drained me of everything. I can stay but a moment. Get your things, take the horses, and ride like the wind. Get back to T’Kato and tell him what you saw here. Tell him the flute recognized these beings. Tell him the Ne’Goi have returned.” He faded with each word, and by the time he finished, his voice floated on the wind and he was gone.
She followed his instructions, running to the horses, grateful she had packed the early that morning so everything was ready to go. She stopped to pick up Brant’s sword at the edge of his glade. With one final look at his icy tomb, she tied the reins of Brant’s horse to a hook at the back of her saddle, mounted the horse, and kicked it with a loud “Hyah!”
Startled, the mare lurched forward, pulling Brant’s horse with her. The saddle moved for just a second until the stallion caught up with the mare. In all likelihood, he could probably have passed her, but he followed well, and in a very short time Kayla barreled out of the tree line and straight toward Hadril’s wagon.
The men saw her coming, and before she arrived, all three of them stood outside. The boy, Jayden, perched on the roof, his usual scowl in place.
She pulled back on the reins so hard, the horses almost skidded on their backsides to obey her command. Under most circumstances, she would never treat an animal that way, but she was too distraught to care. As soon as she saw T’Kato, her eyes teared up. She wanted to throw herself into his arms for comfort, but she knew she wouldn’t receive it from him. T’Kato was all business where the flute and magic were concerned.
She blinked furiously for a moment as the men approached and at least pushed the tears back, though she couldn’t ease the emptiness of her heart and soul.
“What happened?” T’Kato demanded. “Where is Brant?”
“Dead,” she answered, not sure if she could expound.
The ride back had given her time to think, and she knew why the shadow weavers, or the Ne’Goi, as Brant had called them, had come.
They heard the flute. Just like C’Tan, they had heard the flute and come to claim it.
The shock on T’Kato’s face forced her to explain, though there wasn’t time for details. “Brant died at the hand of Jihong. I killed Jihong without meaning to and Niefusu took his body home. They are gone, but there is something more you need to know,” she said, interrupting him before he could ask questions. “Brant’s spirit was taken into the flute and he is turning into some kind of elemental. After I sealed his body in an ice casket, we were attacked by a shadowy figure. Brant appeared to fight him. I managed to paralyze the man with the stonefish spines Jihong used to kill my love.” She choked on that for a minute, then continued. “Brant said to tell you that the flute recognized our attacker. His last words were ‘the Ne’Goi have returned.’”
T’Kato paled. Kayla was pretty sure she’d never seen him do that before. Even Hadril and Graylin went white as cotton at those words. They looked at one another, then turned in unison and sprinted for the wagon. They took down the awning that acted as a side cover, stowed the poles, sent Jayden to the inn with a load of items Graylin had repaired, then hitched up the other two horses to the wagon.
Kayla started to object. “Wait, don’t those horses belong to the stable at the inn?”
Graylin came around and opened the door in back for her. “They did. We are taking them as payment for the work done. Jayden will tell the innkeep, telling him to collect from those who still owe us money. It will work out, and to tell you the truth, the inn will make out better. We are losing money on this. Now get in the wagon. We need to go.”
Kayla understood their fear. She still shook from her encounter with the shadow weaver. “But why so fast? Surely we have a few hours before the Ne’Goi come to investigate the absence of the one. He is frozen, paralyzed. How can he send word to others?”
Graylin seemed exasperated. “We don’t know how it works, and it has been so long since the Ne’Goi have been here, I only know the tales, but from what I understand, their minds are like a hive. What one knows, all know. They will be here shortly. There is no time to waste. Get in.” He gestured tothe boxcar.
This time Kayla listened. She hitched up her skirt and stepped into the wagon, the door shutting tightly behind her.