Blackveil (85 page)
Karigan ran after Lynx, dragging Yates behind her and yelling directions at him even as groundmite arrows fell about them.
They had to clamber over the enormous trunk of a fallen tree, scrambling for finger- and toeholds. It was more like climbing the rocky face of a mountain. Bark crumbled beneath Karigan’s foot and she almost fell, an arrow thudding into the wood beside her. Ard pushed Yates from below, and then they were over the top, down the other side, and running again. Mercifully the ground was relatively level, and then Karigan realized there were flagstones beneath the forest debris. They were heading toward the castle, and when Karigan looked up, she saw wide, curving steps leading up to a terrace and enormous doors framed by statues. The statues were of Eletian maidens gesturing toward the grove, though one’s arm lay half-buried on the ground. They pelted up the stairs and onto the terrace. Ealdaen ordered them to take cover behind the statues.
Karigan peered around the leg of her statue, watching as Telagioth, Lhean, and Solan crouched on the fallen tree trunk, taking careful aim before loosing arrows. Groundmite arrows flew over and around them. It had to have been by sheer accident and not skill that Graelalea had been hit. She glanced at the Eletian cradled in Lynx’s arms. Blood runneled from her white armor and dripped to the stone beneath their feet.
“Can’t help her till we get cover,” Lynx rumbled.
Graelalea’s eyes fluttered open. They were a startling emerald in this dark place. “Galad . . .” she began.
“Shhh,” Lynx said. “You must save your strength.”
“Arodroa imitre!”
Ealdaen thundered, making Karigan jump.
Ealdaen thundered, making Karigan jump.
He stood before the great doors muttering something, and if she didn’t know better, she could swear he was cursing in Eletian.
“They need the moon,” he said, frustration in his voice. He disregarded the arrows that skittered on the stone around him. He took out his moonstone and silvery light rippled across the doors, revealing shining, swirling designs incorporating a tree, the stars, and the moon, very similar to the moondial they’d seen in Telavalieth.
“Arodoa imitre en muna!”
Ealdaen commanded.
Ealdaen commanded.
There was a discernible
snick
of a mechanism from somewhere deep within the doors, and a groan, but they still did not open.
snick
of a mechanism from somewhere deep within the doors, and a groan, but they still did not open.
Ealdaen did not flinch or move when an arrow bounced off the back of his armor, and he loosed another stream of what Karigan could only guess was more colorful Eletian cursing. He actually kicked one of the doors. And it opened—just a crack—but it opened. He, Grant, and Ard threw themselves at it and pushed, opening it just wide enough to permit them to enter.
Ealdaen gestured for them to go in and Karigan hoped they were not entering something worse than what they were leaving behind. Ealdaen paused on the terrace. “Telagioth!” he shouted.
Karigan glanced back in time to see Solan, and then Lhean, leap off the tree trunk and pelt toward them. Moments later Telagioth followed. By the time Karigan had guided Yates into the castle, the three Eletians were filing in behind them and pushing the door closed.
“The groundmites have magic with them,” Telagioth said. “I can feel it.”
They all stood there in the castle entrance, overcome by a heavy silence—no dripping of water, no screeching of forest creatures, nothing. And it was not dark. A dull glow shone through the walls, like being inside an eggshell, and yet the castle had thick walls, didn’t it? No, not an eggshell, Karigan decided, but a seashell. The walls gleamed with a pearlescent sheen, not unlike Eletian armor.
The chamber they had entered was the bottom of one of the great towers and they could look up into its seemingly infinite heights, stairs and walkways winding up along the walls, bridges crisscrossing at various levels. Doors opening to who-knew-what lined the walls. The decay of the forest did not permeate the tower. Rather, Karigan had the sense of a place long sealed off from the rest of the world, abandoned and lifeless, but still a bulwark against the dark.
Lynx had lain Graelalea on a blanket on the floor and he and Ealdaen were tending her wound.
“No,” Graelalea gasped. “Need Galad . . .”
Yates nudged Karigan. “What do you see? What’s happening? Where are we?”
But she did not answer him. She left him and took halting steps toward Graelalea as though some will other than her own drew her.
“Galad . . . Galadheon,” Graelalea whispered.
Karigan dropped to her knees beside the Eletian. Blood stained the blanket beneath her and trickled from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes had dulled.
“I’m here,” Karigan said.
“As foretold,” Graelalea said, her voice scarcely a whisper. “I shall not be leaving Blackveil.”
Ealdaen protested in Eletian.
“No, peace, Ealdaen,” she replied. “It is a death wound. Hear me, the Galadheon . . . the Galadheon must complete . . .” She raised her hand and reached for her hair, and in a gesture that appeared to sap all her remaining strength, she tugged a feather loose from a braid and handed it to Karigan. “
Enmorial.
Remember. Must cross thresholds, Galadheon. Go with the moon.”
Enmorial.
Remember. Must cross thresholds, Galadheon. Go with the moon.”
Graelalea’s body slackened, the life extinguished from her eyes. Ealdaen and the other Eletians took up a cry of despair that soared upward into every recess of the tower.
“Good-bye,” Karigan murmured to Graelalea, and even as she watched, the Eletian’s armor dimmed, darkened, as if it, too, were dying.
The Eletians settled Graelalea’s body in the very center of the round chamber and covered her with her gray-green cloak. They placed her moonstone upon her chest and it gave off a dim, gentle glow, and they sat around her in silent vigil.
“This won’t do,” Ard muttered, pacing back and forth. “What are we gonna do? Stand around forever waiting for them?” He jerked his thumb at the Eletians.
“She was their princess and leader,” Karigan said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her chest felt thick with sorrow, but she was unable to shed tears for the feather captivated her, diverted her thoughts. She twirled it before her eyes. It was so white it almost glowed, except for the spray of blood, crimson on pure white. It was causing something to awaken inside her.
“I don’t care,” Ard replied. “Telagioth said those groundmites have magic and they might find a way in here soon.”
“The nythlings don’t like it here,” Grant said. He sat curled up against the wall. The pale light of the castle gleamed on his sweaty face. “Almost time, but they don’t like it here.”
“Hey,” Yates said, his voice, in contrast, excited. “I . . . I think I can almost see. Just shapes, mostly gray, but . . .”
Karigan was glad, but in a distracted way. Just as something was awakening in her, perhaps it was in Yates, too. The castle. The castle must be nulling the backlash effect the forest had on Yates’ ability, but that did not explain what was happening to
her.
her.
Then suddenly she understood, for she began to remember. It came to her as a light touch on her brow, feather-light, like flurries of snow falling and flashing in the silver glow of her moonstone. She remembered standing in the snow beside her father’s sleigh where a figure of light had told her she must travel to Blackveil to help the Sleepers, that if “the enemy” awakened them they would become a deadly weapon.
The figure had told Karigan she could cross thresholds and that she was “the key.” Somehow all of this could aid the Sleepers.
The feather of the winter owl, given to her by Graelalea, had opened her memory, but memory did not serve her. How was she to help the Sleepers? What did it mean she was the key?
Pounding startled her. The groundmites were banging on the doors. One thing was clear: “the enemy” was without and she had to figure out how to prevent them from awakening the Sleepers.
SEEKING BLOOD
G
randmother and her groundmites had toiled their way around the black lake and through the remains of the city. The chronicles of her people had prepared her for the odd aesthetics of the Eletians and their ever spiraling streets, but the groundmites disregarded the streets, using rough trails through the ruins they must have broken and learned about over the generations. If there were obstacles or some predator in their path, they lunged forward with unbridled enthusiasm and battered down whatever was in the way.
randmother and her groundmites had toiled their way around the black lake and through the remains of the city. The chronicles of her people had prepared her for the odd aesthetics of the Eletians and their ever spiraling streets, but the groundmites disregarded the streets, using rough trails through the ruins they must have broken and learned about over the generations. If there were obstacles or some predator in their path, they lunged forward with unbridled enthusiasm and battered down whatever was in the way.
The castle towers loomed over the craggy, dark ruins, sometimes seeming to float, depending on the whimsy of the fog. It was not absolutely clear in the chronicles if Mornhavon occupied the castle after defeating Argenthyne or left it to rot. Even if he had occupied it, the chronicles suggested he preferred his fortress in the west, on the shore of Ullem Bay. She could not blame him, for the towers here were otherworldly, disquieting, exuding the taint of Eletian power even after so much time.
They came to the grove more swiftly than she dared to hope thanks to her groundmite allies.
Gubba extended her arms wide as if to embrace the immense trees before them and proclaimed,
“Brin ban orba!”
“Brin ban orba!”
Grandmother, who still could not follow the groundmite’s speech, assumed she’d said something very profound.
“Morrrnnhavon brin ban orba!”
Gubba exclaimed, and the groundmite warriors banged the butts of their spears and bows on the ground repeating her phrase in a shout.
Gubba exclaimed, and the groundmite warriors banged the butts of their spears and bows on the ground repeating her phrase in a shout.
One thing Grandmother had gathered was that the groundmites regarded Mornhavon as a god, thought that he’d created this world for them. It was true in a sense. For all intents, the groundmites had done very well in Blackveil, a realm of Mornhavon’s making. But Grandmother knew better—Mornhavon was not God. He may have been the greatest Arcosian to have lived, still loved and revered by his people, and the favored one of God, but no, he was not God. It only served to illustrate how much more sophisticated Grandmother and her people were than the groundmites.
Now that they had reached their destination, Grandmother was still unclear as to what she needed to do to awaken the Sleepers. She assumed it would require blood magic, but now that she saw the immensity of the grove for herself, and that the trees, though rotting, retained some strength in them, she realized she’d need a lot of blood. She gazed speculatively at the groundmites. She’d need several of them, and they’d likely turn on her if she tried to use even one of them.
She turned her attention to her own people. They had come all this way with her and had shown exceptional loyalty, even Sarat, who’d been so frightened of every little thing along the way. She’d grown very fond of them and hated the thought of having to sacrifice even one of them. Perhaps she could persuade someone to volunteer. It would certainly demonstrate ultimate loyalty to her and Second Empire.
She watched Lala clamber up a tree root and balance her way to the trunk to look at a nobby burl that resembled a face—a face dribbling sap. Could Grandmother sacrifice her own granddaughter?
She would if she must, for God had commanded her to awaken the Sleepers.
Lala took her eating knife and probed the burl, then jammed it into the spot of rot. The tree trembled, casting down branches and needles and scurrying creatures. Groundmites scattered out of the way.
Gubba clapped and laughed. “Lalala goot!”
The old groundmite would not be laughing had one of the truly enormous branches above dropped on her.
The wound Lala inflicted in the bark caused more sap to flow. It had an ocher tint to it.
Very interesting,
Grandmother thought, and she called the child away fearing that another stab into the tree would indeed cause it to drop a limb on them.
Grandmother thought, and she called the child away fearing that another stab into the tree would indeed cause it to drop a limb on them.
She stood deep in thought, stewing over what to do, what had to be done. The groundmites were scattered but nearby, gabbling among themselves or picking beetles off the forest floor and popping them into their mouths. Her own people sat themselves on a tree root to rest after their arduous journey, and Lala took up a string game.
Gubba now squatted and looked up at Grandmother as if expecting some great show of the art. Grandmother in turn sighed, and then felt a twinge on the back of her neck. Something had changed. Gubba sensed it, too, and gazed in the direction of the castle.
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