“There doesn’t seem to be any activity in the tower’s compound,” Elenai called back softly. “But there’s a cabin near the line of trees with smoke rising from the chimney.” She turned to see Kyrkenall daubing his face with dirt just below the rise of the hill. Their shadows were stretched about as long as they would get, as the crimson sliver of sun sank to its bed beyond the tree-lined, white-capped mountains. In its wake the vast blanket of blue overhead was darkening to purple.
Kyrkenall replied quietly, “Either someone’s left the kettle on, or there are more guards stationed there. Come take a look at this while I spy up top. I think this is the sigil they were talking about.”
She slowly crawled back. Kyrkenall tapped the grass beside an object he’d apparently pulled from the dead. To regular scrutiny it was a twisted brass spiral the length of her hand, set with green gemstones. Through her inner sight it glowed with a complex magical aura, one linked by slim gold strands of mystical energy to the leather collar around the distant dead beast, still lying five good strides from the line of corpses at the base of the hill.
It was hard not to think about them even as she focused on the sigil. After she’d studied it for a time, Kyrkenall slid down beside her. “You figure it out?”
“It has a connection with the collar. I’m thinking that the beast couldn’t approach anyone with a sigil without the collar activating in some fashion.”
“Probably it would have given a jolt of pain. I bet that’s what the fence posts do, too.”
“I guess this will make it easier to deal with the next beast.”
“We probably won’t need to,” Kyrkenall replied. “They couldn’t keep many of those. It would take a lot of game to feed even one.”
“But, how do you know how large the fenced-in area was?” she pressed. “Maybe it had a hundred acres to forage.”
“You wouldn’t want to make it too large, or the thing would be miles away when unwanted company turned up. What I don’t understand is why there’s a station outside the fort. There’s plenty of space inside. The barracks there are large enough to accommodate fifty. There’s a solid stable near the south wall, so there’s surely no need to build that flimsy horse shelter I spotted beyond the cabin. They’d have to hobble the horses under guard to graze them with that ‘gralk’ wandering around. The tower compound even has a bathhouse, which is about the nicest thing out here in the winter, so you’d think they’d want to live inside.” By the end he was clearly talking to himself.
“Maybe they have so many people they needed extra room,” Elenai suggested.
Kyrkenall shook his head. “I did some training out here, remember? Even if they crammed the existing barracks, there’s plenty of room within the stone wall to add buildings. Besides, I can’t see any sign the base has hosted anyone recently, let alone a full regiment. That flag is in rags.”
“We could visit the cabin to learn more. If we take some people alive.” She had labored to sound circumspect, but Kyrkenall picked up on her tone.
“Is that a criticism, Squire? I don’t recall you offering any terms.”
She blurted out the question that had been tearing at her. “Why didn’t you? Couldn’t you have captured the last two? Or one?” If they had more information now they wouldn’t be huddled in the cold deciding how to best fling themselves into uncertain disaster.
For a long moment he offered nothing but an unblinking stare. “What do you think this is?” he asked finally. Apparently he didn’t expect an answer, for he went on. “We were surrounded, and they were going to kill us.”
“Not all of them wanted to.”
“The one in charge did. Look, maybe they would have, and maybe not. And maybe they would have taken us prisoner and done who knows what with us. I had one chance, and I took it. Do you understand?”
“I guess so.” She frowned, unsatisfied.
“I don’t think you do.” He raised his voice for emphasis. “This isn’t the training field. If someone scores on us it’s not with a blunt instrument. Whoever put these people out here murdered Asrahn, so you can bet they won’t think twice about the two of us. Maybe some of the guards were hesitating, but they weren’t in charge. Don’t count on kindness. Especially when your life’s at stake. Now do you understand?”
She nodded slowly, struggling to halt the flood of emotion as she realized what was really upsetting her. Need she have killed that woman? In the heat of combat it hadn’t occurred to try to wound her or ask her to yield. She realized with a sinking certainty that she was childishly blaming Kyrkenall not because he killed the soldiers, but because he failed to keep her from her own actions. She took a slow trembling breath. She was a soldier. Her choices were consequential and she was responsible for them.
If anything, he appeared more exasperated than ever. “What’s wrong now?”
She felt her throat constrict but managed to sound fairly normal when she spoke. “Nothing.” She held off admitting that this had been the first time she’d killed someone.
He gave her a searching look, but said only, “Good. Let’s see that cabin.”
Kyrkenall had already recovered some of his own arrows, and apparently searched through the equipment of the dead, found the most suitable shafts, and fitted them into his newly full quiver. He led the way into the dark landscape.
Elenai set aside her sentiments and focused through her ring, watching for life forces that might creep up on them through the waist-high grass. Kyrkenall’s horse, Lyria, quietly brought up the rear, obedient as a well-trained hound, stopping when he stopped, moving forward when he signaled. It put her in mind of poor Aron. Someday, he too might have responded so well.
They saw nothing more dangerous than a few small bats flying out for nighttime feeding, and before too long they arrived at the wooden stockade that surrounded the cabin and its companion buildings. She’d had little doubt the longer structure was a stable, and she had even less once the horses within whinnied at the scent of Lyria, who snorted her own response.
Kyrkenall cursed softly, and with a running jump set hands to the head-high stockade wall and vaulted over.
“Kyrkenall?” Elenai called quietly. He didn’t answer. Grumbling a little to herself, she followed him. By the time she had climbed over he was already at the closed door on the narrow cabin porch. Before she reached it, he’d burst inside with naked blade.
After a short moment, he leaned out to wave her in and they searched together, finding a half dozen beds and chests and a few personal belongings, a dining table and cooking area. There had been six dead guards and there were six beds here, so it looked as though they’d met up with everyone. In back was an outhouse, and a long, slant-roof shed where they found eight curious horses and a pair of goats.
While Elenai let Lyria into the stockade, Kyrkenall lit a sturdy lantern he’d found inside the barracks and studied a large wooden wheeled structure behind the cabin. It was a catapult just over eight feet high. Leads in front suggested it was to be hauled by horses.
“Why do you think they needed a siege engine?” she asked.
“I’m still figuring that out.” He had remained oddly quiet throughout their investigation, communicating almost entirely by hand signals except when he’d ordered her to bring in Lyria and when he’d told her not to put his horse with the others.
He stretched up to examine the bucket. The arm was stored in the up position, standard practice so that there wasn’t constant tension on the throwing support.
“So,” she guessed, “there’s something in the tower compound, behind the walls. Maybe it’s another gralk. The guards were its keepers. They hunted for game, then launched a carcass in to feed the thing from time to time. Whatever it is.” Though her voice was level, the thought of some unknown beast lurking inside that enclosure was far more alarming than the prospect the place was stuffed with soldiers.
His look to her was sharp, and he cursed, then smiled. “Damn. You’re right. Why else would they erect these lousy buildings instead of using the good ones next to the tower? Why else would they have a bloodstained catapult?”
She was glad he agreed.
“How are you at sensing things through the hearthstone?”
“What do you mean?”
“Kalandra could stretch out her senses with a hearthstone and sort of feel ahead a bit.”
“Like what we do with the Altenerai rings?”
“Exactly. Rialla was really good at it, too.”
Of course she was.
He continued enthusiastically. “Try to reach into the fortress. If you sense anything really strange, pull back.”
“Strange?”
“Any kind of strange. But I guess we’ve been seeing a lot of that, haven’t we?”
She nodded, already thinking of the possible dangers. One of the first lessons taught all those with magical gifts was to be careful looking around too long in the inner world, for there were entities out there that hungered for unprotected souls.
Though she thought herself prepared to touch the hearthstone once more, it was as much of a shock as the first time, and so pleasurable that she couldn’t suppress a smile. Once she had the hearthstone’s threads wrapped about her life force, she extended filaments of will toward the fortress wall. It rushed closer, faster than anticipated, while she worked to keep part of herself rooted to her body. Too late she remembered that when you projected you were supposed to sit, or even lie down, lest you injure yourself while your attention was elsewhere.
When her awareness reached the wall, she could have spent hours studying the pitted stones in detail, for the moonlit contrasts of shape and shade presented beautifully to her hearthstone-enhanced sight. But she pressed through them, sensing the outlines of the long roofed stables Kyrkenall had described against the south of the fortress, and the row of dark, wooden buildings to the tower’s west. Mostly, though, her mind was drawn to the whirling energies beyond the north wall, the sudden drop to chaotic void that apparently justified placing all the adjacent fortifications to address it. Kyrkenall had not mentioned how spectacular was the multihued view!
As if on cue, she heard his voice. He sounded very far away. “Do you feel anything?”
“Wait a moment,” she said. Her speech sent shock waves along the tendrils of intent she used to explore her surroundings. She’d have to watch that. She knew she’d made her presence more noticeable in the magical spectrum, even if she’d produced no audible sound there.
Try as she might, she felt no life-forms of any interest anywhere near the tower or its outbuildings. There were rodents and insects in abundance.
She tried whispering to Kyrkenall. “There’s nothing—”
And she fell silent, because something was racing from the west end of the compound, a large undulating form shot through with matrices that were both intact, as you’d find in an ordinary animal, and changeable, as with something from the Shifting Lands. It seemed to know exactly where her threads of intent were, for it closed upon one; she had the fleeting impression of a longish reptilian thing with too many legs and a many-toothed maw lunging for her.
She recoiled, blinded by pain, and before she was entirely sure what had happened she found herself blinking rapidly and being supported by Kyrkenall. She appeared to have slumped, for he tightly gripped her upper arms.
“—ser me,” he was saying, his voice agitated. “Are you all right?”
She relaxed her mental hold upon the hearthstone, adjusted her footing so she stood upright, and felt herself redden as he let go of her shoulders.
“What did you see?”
The pain was clearing but lingered between her eyes. “Something strange,” she croaked dryly.
“Funny. How about some details?”
“It’s a monster all right. Probably from the Shifting Lands.” She blinked a few times. “It’s about the length of a horse, maybe a little longer, with a tail like a lizard, except it has too many legs. And,” she added, “it knew I was there. It deliberately attacked.” She pressed her temple as everything settled.
He appraised her with concern, but said only, “It must not be able to climb, or the walls wouldn’t keep it in.”
That seemed a fairly safe assessment. She discovered her hand quavered a little as she put it to the top of her waterskin, and hoped Kyrkenall didn’t notice. She held tight to the stopper until she had calmed herself, then uncorked the cap and drank long and deep.
“There’s a walkway that runs all along the fortress battlement,” Kyrkenall mused. “At least there used to be. They probably took out the stairs to keep the beast in. We could get fairly close to the tower that way, but we’ll still be a good fifty feet off. And you can bet that the tower door’s locked.”
“Why don’t we heave a carcass over, to keep it distracted?” she asked.
He seemed to consider that for a moment before shaking his head. “Better to just climb to the walkway and shoot it to death. Also easier. You don’t want to have to cut up the gralk or your horse, then drag the pieces back here and load them in the catapult basket, do you?”
Now that he mentioned it, no.
“The complicated way’s usually not the best.” He grinned. “I guess Denaven and his lot never counted on someone figuring it out ahead of time and killing whatever they’ve locked in there at a distance. Shows a lack of foresight.” He started back for the cabin. “I’m going to need some rope.”
By the time they’d walked to the fortress wall, the stars wheeled in the heavens and the moon was a high golden crescent. Kyrkenall tied a rope to a wicked looking metal hook he’d found in the stables near some hay bales. He grinned mirthlessly at her as he worked the knot. “‘Had I such wings, to you I’d fly each night.’”
Elenai recognized the words. They were from the courtship scene of doomed Iratahn to his lover Donahlia, after he had climbed her garden wall and pointed to an owl. She answered as Donahlia had done. “‘Had we them both, the moon should light our way as we soared forth to seek the shining stars.’”
His grin broadened into a real smile. “Ho ho! So my squire’s seen a play or two?”
“‘They are numbers beyond knowing, my queen.’” This time she quoted not Selana, but Pendrahn. “My father runs a playhouse,” Elenai explained. “I grew up around the theater.”
“And here you struck me as such a fine upstanding person.” He finished the knot. “You like Selana?”
“Yes, but I prefer Pendrahn.”
“He’s not without his charm. I prefer the beauty of her language, though.”
Selana was old fashioned, but she didn’t tell him that.
Kyrkenall hefted the hook and line around three or four times, presumably gauging its weight. “They sure went to a lot of trouble to keep Irion hidden, didn’t they? Makes you wonder if there’re some other secrets within.”
“Like what?”
“Well, if this was a play, we’d find a manifesto of their plans and the map to their secret installation, wouldn’t we?”
“Or magic armor.”
“I wouldn’t mind some magic armor,” Kyrkenall said. “Let’s be on with it. If we stay low, we should be hidden between the stable roof and the walkway as we get up there.”
“How are we going to get through the tower door?” she asked.
“You’ll have to blast it with magics. You can do that, can’t you?”
“I’ve never done it before.”
“It’s been a whole week of firsts for you then, hasn’t it? I’ve faith in you.”
“You must think this magic stuff is easy,” she said.
“On the contrary. I just think you’re good.”
The unexpected compliment surprised a smile out of her, one that left a warm glow. It didn’t keep her from thinking ahead, though. “Are you sure you’ll be able to kill it from the walkway?”
His answer was supremely confident. “I don’t see why not. You think this thing is going to be harder to hit than the gralk?”
“I just think it might be more dangerous. It’s on the inside, even closer to the tower they want to protect.”
“Excellent point, but I’ll be closer to it than I was the gralk, and shooting from a vantage point. I should be able to pick out a vital area.” He handed her the lantern. “Here. You should hold onto the hearthstone, too.”
She was astonished at how casual he was about it. While she stowed it in her pack, he threw the hook.
His cast was true, and lodged solidly over the fifteen-foot wall with a minimal clank as it caught. With the chill night breeze ruffling his hair and clothes, he was up the rope in no time, and disappeared over the battlement. She hurried after him ably enough, though less quickly. The dimmed lantern tied to her belt banged against her thigh. She was oddly grateful for all the terrible exercises Asrahn had inflicted upon them over the years. As a first ranker, nothing had bedeviled her more than the climbing wall. She felt another pang of loss for the old Master of Squires as she reached the merlon and clambered after her companion.
Soon she was hurrying at a crouch along the wall’s walkway, a lane between the battlement and the stable roof. The air was full with the smell of rotten hay and fouler alien odors, intermittently freshened with gusts from without. She could perceive no sounds other than the minimal reverberations of their footfalls on the creaky wooden walkway. Dark buildings dotted the inside space off her left hand, and the main tower loomed alone over all, gray against the black. Ahead, much smaller twin turrets flanking the fort’s gate were just visible over the archer’s shoulders and head.
Kyrkenall paused beside the barbican with arrow nocked. She crouched with him near the steep stone stair, which was barred with reinforced stone debris at the ground end. She searched in vain for the fell creature, then spotted it unexpectedly emerging from under the walkway beneath their feet; a bluish bulk, its conical head pointed unmistakably in their direction. Had it silently stalked them along their whole course?
The exotic being regarded them hungrily but with absolute silence. Elenai could perceive no eyes along its smooth surface, and there was no indication of the toothed mouth she thought she had seen earlier through inner sight. The thing’s long reptilian body suddenly lit with running lines of bright energy, like molten iron pouring into a bladesmith’s mold. It was eerily beautiful. In the darkness, she only partially sensed its shape and wasn’t able to count its legs, but it looked larger than she’d believed. There appeared to be some kind of fringe around its head. Its lights went on and off intermittently, though she could perceive no pattern.
“Kind of pretty, really,” Kyrkenall whispered, then launched the arrow, readying a second the moment the first soared out. When Kyrkenall’s arrow embedded itself just behind the frilled area at the base of its skull, the flashes of light along its back converged at the point of impact.
Beside her, Kyrkenall stiffened in the act of loosing his next arrow. He collapsed upon the battlement, then let out a string of colorful curses.
She sank beside him as he blinked, his mouth contorting in pain. “What happened?” she asked frantically. She searched in vain for sign of injury—a stone or arrow sent by some unseen assailant. She found nothing, though through the inner world his energies flared around a point at the back of his head.
The creature whipped around and clawed vigorously at the debris barrier on the stairs below. Its jaws opened vertically, and impossibly wide; previously unseen fleshy antennae waved at the end of its snout. It still seemed to have no eyes. Most disconcerting of all, Kyrkenall’s arrow was sinking slowly into its now-iridescent surface, as it would if dropped into the mud. Defying all of her understanding, the creature was somehow absorbing the shaft.
Kyrkenall cursed again while propping himself up, and gingerly touched the back of his head. He considered the monster as it ceased its scuffling to point its maw at them and clacked its jaws open and shut. Something dripping from the sharp teeth sizzled as it struck the ground.
Kyrkenall spoke with quiet effort. “When I hit the damned thing, I felt it. Fully, I’d guess. Otherwise I’d be tempted to fire a volley right down its nasty gullet.”
The beast paced back and forth beneath them, its long tail dragging. Elenai was able to count what looked like eight stubby legs on one side and seven on the other. It was hard to keep track, especially since the limbs shifted so quickly and, like the rest of the body, were randomly illuminated with bright lines of light. Sporadic sizzling sounds continued and an acrid odor drifted up.
“How did it just absorb the arrow?” Elenai asked. She didn’t actually expect an answer.
“No idea. It looks like if we touch it in any way, we’re the ones who get hurt. That doesn’t leave us with a lot of options.”
They’d have to get it away from the tower. “Do you think it would follow you if you shot arrows right in front of it? And led it away?”
“We can find out. You planning to run down and open the door while I’m doing that?”
“Exactly.”
He grinned at her. “That’s downright reckless. I like it. How long do you need me to keep it away?”
“I’ve no idea,” she had to confess. “I’ve never tried to magically unlock a door before.”
He clapped her shoulder. “Most of life is just making it up as you go. What are you going to do if you’re trapped outside the tower while the thing is coming for you?”
“Run.”
He let out a short bark of a laugh, then ran his hand over his face and stepped around in a tight circle, frowning. He came to rest after a deep sigh. “All right. I’ll give you plenty of notice if it starts to head back. You ready?”
“When you are.”
He handed her the lantern she’d set down, then stepped west upon the battlement, raised his hands, and waved his arms. “Hey, you ugly spit-dripper! Look at me!”
It stopped its pacing; then, as he shouted and stamped, it followed after him under the walkway. When Kyrkenall reached the stable roofs he began hopping in the air and shouting even more loudly.
She waited until the monster was on the other side of the compound beneath Kyrkenall. Just to be a little safer, she connected again with the hearthstone, thinking it might alert her if the creature drew close.
She carefully and quietly picked her way over the barrier, then sprinted for the tower door. In only a few heartbeats the tower spread menacingly overhead; night seemed to have lengthened it. She twisted the lantern back on and opened its shutters, yellowing the white stones around the weathered wooden door. She focused on the tarnished metal lock, feeling every hair on her neck rise as she exposed her back. Little noises she’d paid no heed to, like the wind against the roof shingles of the barracks behind, or the flutter of the flag above, were like claws across her heart.
Elenai wasn’t a locksmith, nor had she spent much time contemplating how they worked, although she gathered there was some kind of mechanism that allowed a bolt to be extended from the door and into the wall. And that’s exactly what her energy probes found, for a touch of the magic enabled her to detect that a particularly solid substance extended from the door to a housing inside.
Could she shift the mechanism that moved the bolt, somehow shape energy to fit the keyhole and twist it? Might she instead alter the consistency of the lock? Normally such a task would be beyond all but the most accomplished of mages. But then most mages didn’t have access to a hearthstone. How long would it take? How long could Kyrkenall keep the creature at bay?
She shook herself and sent threads of will into the lock bar. Rudimentary magical theory taught that it was always simpler to alter rather than to create or even destroy. Her first thought was to try to rust the lock, but she wasn’t sure how to go about that. Instead, she decided to manipulate its shape. Something so powerful should have been far beyond her, but with the hearthstone’s aid she brought enormous forces to bear, shifting the metal that composed the bar into the spaces around the mechanisms until little was left but a slender core.
She paused, gathering a metaphorical breath, then whirled at a noise to her rear and saw Kyrkenall sprinting toward her, his black recurved bow in hand. Panting quietly, glancing over his shoulder, he arrived and asked in a whisper: “Are we in yet?”
She wiped sweat from her brow. The image of the inner world overlaid across the outer, so he seemed both himself and a hazy mix of golden threads pulsating with energies that likewise burned in his ring and upon his weapons. “I’ve weakened it,” she said.
“Good. We’d better get inside.”
“Where’s the thing?”
“I fired some arrows at the far wall, and it dashed off to investigate. I don’t think we have much time to waste, though.”
“I’ll give it a try, then.”
“Let me.” Kyrkenall set his hand to the handle and pulled. She saw him strain slightly, and then there was a clanking noise, as of metal on metal, and the door swung open in his hand.
The sensory threads about her vibrated madly and, without intention, her vision narrowed. All she saw was the door and Kyrkenall’s action and dozens upon dozens of strands stretching off to a dark future. Only one was golden, and she laid her hand to it.…
… Was that her voice screaming for him to get down? Without thinking, she was tackling him.
A storm of events crashed at the same moment. Something hard slammed into the front of Elenai’s shoulder. She heard the footfalls of a large thing racing out of the night to their rear, and the air whirred as it only did when arrows pass close. There was the distinctive sound of shafts striking flesh behind her. Then Elenai slammed into the dirt with Kyrkenall, driving her breath away.
At some point she’d relinquished the hearthstone. She hadn’t remembered doing that consciously, but the magical overlay was gone. Elenai looked down at Kyrkenall, found his dark eyes fixed upon her. In the bright light of the lantern she’d dropped, Elenai noted it was just possible to see the outline of Kyrkenall’s pupils against the black sclera. He smelled of his horse, and his sweat, and road dust, and he was so very splendid.
Then he rolled, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her to her feet.
The lantern had fallen but somehow landed upright, uncracked, and it shone on the weird sparkling horror only six feet off, and the jagged teeth within its clacking jaws. The feelers were waving at the end of its snout. It had been pincushioned with a dozen bright red darts, illuminated by the gathered bright points in its skin as they were drawn inside the porous, glistening hide.
“Go!” Kyrkenall roared.
She snatched up the lantern and threw herself through the tower entryway. She was moving too fast to avoid collision with a sturdy metal shelf set a few paces back. As the construction wobbled it pulled the slim chain linking it to the door itself. Kyrkenall cursed, for the tightening chain slammed the door against him as he was halfway through.
Elenai whirled, the wildly shaking light in her hand passing over dozens of holes set into the odd shelf unit at head and chest level. Kyrkenall slid through.
And then the door was smashed open by the terrible scaly head of the eyeless horror. This time the chain attached to the shelf was simply ripped away, and the creature lunged in to snap at Kyrkenall, who kicked it squarely in the jaw. She lashed out with all the pain and fear she’d felt the first time she encountered the creature. She’d never tried such an attack without focus on a talisman, but she didn’t have the time to feel for it and she didn’t think she needed it. Not after experiencing it so intently herself.
As her thread touched the monster, that imagined pain struck her, too, and she staggered backward into the chamber. The creature, though, writhed in agony with her, and Kyrkenall crawled to safety.
Reeling, Elenai sank to cold stone, in too much pain to worry about what she couldn’t see behind her. Agony washed not just through her limbs, but her gut as well, so that she doubled up on the floor, eyes squeezed tight. She felt as though she’d swallowed fire.
Vaguely she was aware of Kyrkenall calling to her, squeezing her shoulder.
And then suddenly the sensation ebbed, and she was able to sit up. Kyrkenall smiled at her, then stepped back to peer out the door. “Hey, look at this!”
It was about all she could do just then to stare at the tower’s stone floor. “What is it?”
“The thing’s dying!”
Surely she hadn’t done that much damage to it.
“I bet those darts were poisoned,” he said with a laugh. “Hah! The hastigs who rigged that dart-throwing thing to go off when the door opened couldn’t imagine they’d be saving our asses by killing their own monster! Take that, Denaven!”
Maybe that’s why she felt such excruciating discomfort inside her, over and above the blast of her magical attack. She’d magically touched the thing while it died of poison. Finally she sat up completely, and a cheerful Kyrkenall was looking down at her.
“You’re sure it’s dead?” she asked.
“Either that or it has a weird sleep cycle. Hey, how did you know to pull me out of the way? You couldn’t see the trap, could you?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure how I did it,” she said, and her ignorance embarrassed her. “I guess I saw ahead a little.”
“Well, you saved us both. Nicely done. You going to live?”
“It feels like it.” She took his offered hand and climbed unsteadily to her feet. She stepped around and looked over the dart launcher, now fallen through the threshold of the door. The creature lay absolutely still, the light lines fading along its skin. The terrible jaws had shut forever, and the stubby legs ceased their shifting. Sending such a unique creature to its end made her feel somehow shabby.
Kyrkenall was talking calmly beside her. “You note that the darts were designed to launch at head level. Do you know why?”
Elenai shook her head.
“To take out Altenerai. Those darts couldn’t drive through Altenerai armor. But a lot of us don’t bother with helmets or the first few hooks of our robe unless we’re riding into battle.”
She thought back to the impact she’d felt against her shoulder, thankful for the protective fabric. If not for her borrowed khalat a dart might have poisoned her as well. “Do you think the tower has more traps?”
“Almost surely. You ready to find them?”
“I suppose I have to be.”
“That’s the right answer.”
She followed him in as he lifted the lantern and played it over the room. To their left, an open timber staircase wound up along the inner wall. To their right, and beyond the dart launcher, a dark and dusty room took up the remainder of the tower’s lower floor.
The room itself was fairly spare. There was a cold hearth, a stone floor with an ancient rug, and a cupboard with a serving shelf waiting with dusty mugs. A door stood in the far wall. But drawing the eye more than anything else was a huge upright hunk of irregular crystal near the fireplace. Chairs were pushed to the periphery near a dried-out old table. Elenai, opening herself once more to the inner world, was nearly overwhelmed by the energies she perceived within the weird rock.
She felt pulled to it as if dragged on puppet strings.
“Watch out for that thing,” Kyrkenall warned.
“It has hearthstone magics,” she said without looking at him.
“Then it’s probably a trap.”
“Maybe this is what everyone was guarding,” she said.
The object was so dense she couldn’t see individual threads the way she did when she looked at any ordinary living objects. Just like a hearthstone. It was brighter but somehow different than her hearthstone. And it was vastly larger.
“You think they were hiding this instead of Irion? You said Cargen was thinking about the sword when he pictured this tower.”
“He said he wasn’t,” Elenai reminded him. “Maybe it’s inside.”
“It’s like an overgrown hearthstone, isn’t it? Can you hide things inside of a hearthstone?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Well, let’s steer clear of it for now. It’s a big tower. Maybe the sword’s hidden somewhere else.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t. They searched the empty quarters and storage rooms above, abandoned save for some old mattressless bunks. They even went up to the tower’s height, where Elenai got her first non-magical look at the chasm. She took in the endless sky, complete with swirling stars above and below, for long moments. According to Kyrkenall, no explorer had ever arrived at the tip of this mountainous peninsula from outside the realm, nor had anyone ever returned from a downward climb into the bottomless shift. Though horrible miscreations had crawled out of or flown up from that void in times past, now the area was a testament to emptiness. Much like the tower.
In the end, Kyrkenall reluctantly returned to contemplate the giant hearthstone, and she joined him.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand why it’s here. The way the queen collects hearthstones, she’d want it in Darassus, wouldn’t she? Unless there’s something wrong with it.”
“They certainly went to an awful lot of trouble to protect it.”
“All of this seems like too much trouble. If you were going to hide Irion, you could keep it under your bed, couldn’t you? I mean if you were Denaven or the queen. Surely you wouldn’t have to haul it way out here and dispatch guards who might occasionally let things slip about their secret duty.”
“I’m going to take a closer look at it.”
He frowned. “Be very, very careful.”
With hand to the hearthstone in her satchel, Elenai walked forward, her power rooted to it as she sent sensory threads toward the huge crystalline column. Strange, that it was less potent than the smaller stone for all its bright glamour.
As she slowly stepped ever closer she realized there was an interplay of energies between the stones, small to large. It seemed as though they might blend. Her mother had once tried to explain why melody worked, saying that some notes called more strongly to others, so that the tune wanted to keep moving until that tension resolved. She sensed that tension from the hearthstone, and she felt it easing as she walked near.
Kyrkenall’s voice was a grating interruption. “Do you have to get so close?”
“I think I should bring them together.”
“Is that a hunch, or is that the hearthstone talking?”
She halted. She’d never had a conversation with the hearthstone, and never brushed against what she thought was a personality, either. Why was Kyrkenall always speaking as if the hearthstone was a hungry entity ready to devour? “I think it’s what’s needed.” She lifted the stone from her pack.
“You don’t sound sure. It may be some kind of magical trick.”
Elenai ignored the firm hand suddenly gripping her arm and pressed her hearthstone to the man-high crystal.
The resulting magical light blinded her. She gasped and staggered, dropping her link with the stone immediately lest the flaring energies sweep her up.
Kyrkenall pulled her back and pushed her into the space below the stair. She blinked repeatedly to clear her eyes, and could just glimpse her hearthstone, shining but no longer blinding. It had affixed itself to the surface of the crystal block, also glowing from within. The satchel she’d carried it in lay on the floor.
Kyrkenall cursed ferociously and unsheathed his sword.
Golden light flashed over the block’s crystalline surface. And then, in an eye blink, the block’s energies shrank and intensified into two stones smaller than her own. All three dropped away and struck the rug.
A tall, russet-haired swordsman was left where the crystal had stood, his Altenerai robe half undone, his hair tousled. He turned their direction, the long, straight length of Irion shining in his hand and glittering under the light of his sapphire ring.
Elenai’s hand was already on her sword hilt, but she paused with the weapon half drawn.
For facing them was none other than the man who’d once given her his winesac. The warrior who’d led the armies of Darassus to a dozen victories and staved off the Naor invasions. The legendary commander and hero, N’lahr the Grim.