TANWEN
Mor and Kawan paddled as though lives were at stake. Which, of course, they were.
“Should have grabbed more knives,” Diggy muttered to herself. “No, no time.”
“I don’t think knives work on strands,” I told her.
“They kill those making the strands.”
Couldn’t argue with that, but still it chilled me to the bone.
She watched the mass move closer to the island. “Not sure we’ll make it in time.”
“We’ll make it.” Mor’s arms strained with each stroke.
When we reached shallow water, Kawan didn’t pause to pull the canoe to shore. He leapt out, splashed through the water, and sped toward the village, Diggy running after him. Mor and I followed a few paces behind.
“Where was the strand meant to be?” I shouted to Mor as we ran.
“There was a carved stone monument in the jungle somewhere. Dylun said they only needed a colormaster to pull it up.”
Which was why they could spare us, of course. My mind was a muddled mess. I had no idea what we were supposed to do. The hail of dark magic had been too much to fight when we were on the ship, and now that we were here, beaten down and exhausted, I didn’t see that we could fare any better. That mass of sorcery was rolling toward us, and we had run out of time to save Gryfelle.
Now we all needed saving.
“Tannie!” Mor’s voice snapped me back. “This way.”
We ducked into the trees, onto the jungle path, and somehow it was worse not to be able to see the strands coming toward us. They could overtake us at any moment without warning while we were in the jungle. But thank the stars there was a path, at least.
“Looking for your friends?” Diggy appeared beside me out of nowhere and nearly sent me jumping from my skin.
“Aye. What about Kawan and his mother? The other villagers?”
“Kawan’s doing what he can to secure his village. If I really want to help them, I need to stop whatever that thing is before it gets to them.” She paused, then raised her voice to address Mor. “You are going to stop it, right?” Her voice took on a frantic pitch. “You will not leave them to die, Mor. Don’t you run away again!”
Which was a bit ironic because we were literally running.
Mor did not answer her, but I saw his shoulders tense. I hoped he could prove himself to her in all this somehow.
“Off the path here,” Mor said, and he took a hard left into the trees. “This way.”
“There are ancient stones here,” Diggy said. “Is that where we’re going?”
“Yes,” I said between breaths. “We’re unearthing some ancient strands. It’s kind of a long story.”
“For Mor’s dying lass.”
“Aye.”
“Interesting.”
What a strange choice of words. But no time to wonder over Diggy’s oddities at the moment.
“Mor!” I called. “To your right, through those trees!” I could see my father’s gray head.
And now I could see the others. They were huddled around a stone that looked to be a giant carved head, though the features had worn down so that it was barely recognizable as a face. Karlith sat on the floor of the jungle, Gryfelle cradled in her arms. Everyone else looked stormy and frustrated, especially Dylun.
“Tannie?” Father frowned at me. “What are you doing back so soon?” Then he turned to Diggy, and his eyes widened.
I could barely catch my breath to speak. “We—”
“Found Mor’s sister.” Father’s intuitive eyes were focused on Diggy’s face. “Remarkable. She’s alive.”
“Aye,” I managed between heaving breaths. “She’s alive.”
Alive, though not well.
“Amazing.”
“Father,” I interrupted. “Did you get the strand?”
“No,” Dylun said, impatience punctuating the word. “It won’t come out. I can’t understand why.”
He touched the stone head, his fingertips glowing, and painted some sort of design in the divots that served as eyes.
“There!” I pointed. “The strand is right there!”
And sure as seastones, there was the tip of a red strand, just visible, poking out through the stone mouth.
“Box that strand and let’s go,” Mor said, “because we have trouble.”
“Trouble?” Warmil asked. Lines of exhaustion etched his face. “What trouble?”
“Strands,” Mor said. “A whole mess of them, like the ones that sank the ship.”
“Coming here?” Warmil drew his sword, as if that would help.
I remembered Diggy’s point about her knives.
“Yes, coming here,” I said quickly. “So, grab the strand. We need to do something.”
“But I can’t get this one.” Dylun looked like he was ready to punch the rock. “It barely comes out, and whenever I get near, it disappears again. We need all four strands for the cure to work.”
“No.” Warmil shook his head. “This can’t have been for nothing. Think, Dylun. What did the scrolls say?”
Dylun closed his eyes.
I tried not to imagine the mass of dark strands flying toward us. How far away had they been? The ocean’s horizon could play tricks of distance on you. Had they been closer than they appeared? Farther away?
“Diggy, will you check the horizon?” I asked.
She nodded once, then took to the tree canopy in her agile, critter-like way.
I was surprised to hear Gryfelle’s voice. “Oh, that’s strange,” she said weakly. Her gaze fixed on Diggy. “What an interesting little person she is, up in the trees . . .” She blinked slowly. “She looks like a sailor I knew once.”
Stars.
“Dylun,” I said. “Is there something you’re forgetting? Something we missed?”
Dylun’s eyes popped back open, and at first, relief surged through me. Surely he’d had an idea. But then my heart plummeted. His eyes conveyed only anguish.
“We need a stoneshaper.”
“What?”
“That’s what I missed the first time. We need a colormaster and a stoneshaper.”
“But we don’t have a stoneshaper,” I said.
Dylun ignored me. “How could I have missed this?” He shook his head in despair. “I’ve failed you all.”
My gaze darted from weaver to weaver, then to my father. Panic flared. Tears welled. “Daddy?”
His voice was quiet, spent and exhausted. “If we had time. But this darkness . . .”
Diggy dropped into the circle from above. “A league off but moving fast,” she reported. “You best hurry this up so we can get to the west beach.”
A little life seemed to return to Mor. Perhaps the idea of failing his sister again spurred him to grasp at hope. “We have three colormasters here,” he said.
I tried not to remember that we would have four if Aeron were with us.
“What are you thinking, Captain?” asked Father.
“Maybe War and Dylun could link. Try to double their energy. Karlith could help too. Maybe it would be enough even without a stoneshaper.”
Father looked at Warmil. “Do you think you could link with Dylun?”
“Perhaps. He is like a brother to me. We should try.”
And they did. Father handed me the box of strands, then took over caring for Gryfelle. Karlith, Warmil, and Dylun positioned themselves in front of the stone head. Dylun and War clasped each other’s forearms. The fingertips on their unclasped hands glowed a little brighter, but it wasn’t much. Definitely not like when Mor and I linked. Zel and Mor stood back far enough so as not to be in the way, but I stood nearby to capture the red strand with its fellows in the velvet-lined box.
With Dylun and War linked and Karlith doing her part, the head gradually transformed into a painted masterpiece with lifelike features of exquisite detail. I expected it to blink and start speaking to us. But the red strand barely showed another inch of length. It looked more like the head was sticking out its tongue at us, mocking our efforts.
“It’s not working!” I heard the panic in Mor’s voice.
Diggy fidgeted beside me. “There’s no time.”
And then she raised her hand. At first I thought she must be holding a knife, and I almost dropped the box of strands to tackle her before she could attack the three colormasters.
But there was no knife. Lightning crackled across her palm, and then she thrust her arm forward, toward the colormasters and stone head.
A wave of unseen force pulsed from the head where Diggy’s burst of energy collided with the colormastery strands. The colormasters stumbled back a step at its impact. Then the stone head shook, and the red strand whipped from its mouth. Diggy lifted her hand higher, then twisted it and made a flinging motion in my direction. The red strand, like liquid fire and blood, careened into the box with the others.
The force nearly knocked me from my feet. But I kept my balance and watched in amazement at the extraordinary scene unfolding before me.
The red, purple, gold, and blue ribbons met and melded, a kaleidoscope of colors swirling together in an ancient dance for the first time in centuries. For a moment, I held a rainbow in my hands.
Then the rainbow shot into the air beneath the tropical trees. It paused there, pulsing.
“Creator above.” Karlith stared up at it. “It’s beautiful.”
“Magnificent,” marveled Father.
Every gaze remained transfixed.
The rainbow exploded into white light. I threw my arm over my eyes to shield them. It was like the threads of white light that had appeared in my stories five moons ago—these past five moons that felt like a lifetime. But this was no mere thread, no tiny ribbon of truth to counteract the lies forced upon me by Gareth and Riwor and a society so far from truth that it could no longer recognize it when it stood in plain view.
No, this was a solid beam of the same stuff, and I knew I couldn’t look at it. Not if I wanted to live.
But after several moments, the glow seeping through my closed eyelids lessened, and I ventured a glance. The beam was gone, and in its place hovered an orb—clear, bright, with tongues of white fire licking the surface.
Diggy stepped toward it, hand outstretched. “There’s no time.”
“Stop!” I cried. It came out so forcefully, she obeyed.
Somehow I knew this was not a thing she should touch or command or manipulate. This was the cure. Its Source was something beyond my understanding, but instinctively I knew to respect it.
I carefully held out the box. The cure floated toward me, turned a graceful circle, and lowered itself onto the velvet.
We all looked at it, an orb of white fire full of promise, hope, and mercy.
If it worked.
But Diggy was right. We were out of time. That dark mass of strands must be at the shore, and we had promised to not run from those who needed help. It was time to try to save this island full of people.
I closed the box and latched it. “We need to get to the beach.”
Everyone started to move, checking weaponry and flexing fingers and shaking our minds from the trance.
All except Mor, who stepped over to his sister. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked her straight in the eyes. “What was that?”
She shrugged off his contact with a shriek. “Don’t touch me!”
He backed off, but his gaze didn’t let up. “Diggy,” he repeated. “What was that?”
Her defiant eyes darted around like she was looking for a way out. She didn’t answer his question. “Kawan and his mother are on this island. Prove to me you’ve changed. Save them.”