Bricrui (The Forgotten: Book 2) (18 page)

As she moved through the fifth opening, she
stopped short as she reached the end. The symbols were that of a
deer and a snake. Wasn’t that the combination of the first hallway?
She wrinkled her brow in thought and made her way back to the
picture of the lizard. Sure enough, the ruby eye was missing. She
glanced around the floor and found it, pressing it back into place
on the off chance that having removed it had caused some sort of
loop to have started with the spell.

She looked at the completed picture. The
lizard was wound around the light and when Katya peered closer she
could see that there was a faint picture of something else behind
it, artistically done as though it was the lizard’s shadow. But it
was the semblance of a dragon.

Katya sorted through her memories quickly,
sure she had come across something like this before. Her eyes lit
up as she realized what it was. When she had sat listening to the
fables of the tribes, there had been one about a powerful and
mighty dragon who had been brought down by elder who wanted her to
learn the value of respecting others. The dragon had lost her
horns, claws, wings, scales, and finally her massive size by the
elder’s punishments…effectively turning her into a lizard.

She reexamined the first symbols: A deer and
a snake. The dragon had lost her horns because of a deer. She
stepped through the left-hand opening with confidence. The second
set of symbols she was presented with was a lion and an opossum.
This further bolstered her theory. Sure enough, after choosing the
lion the next choices were a bird or a dog. Then a fish or a cow.
And finally, a mouse or an elephant. She chose the mouse.

The chamber she came out into was round, with
a small pedestal on which rested a tiny statue of a lizard. Katya
couldn’t help but smile. There was only one passageway leading out
of this room and she held her breath as she went through.

She let it out as this time she emerged into
fresh open air. She stopped short, however, when she realized that
there was only a small ledge between her and falling several
tree-lengths to her death. She backed up a pace and glanced down.
Far below, she could see that her pursuers were still positioned
outside of the door, their attention towards the surrounding brush.
They apparently hadn’t realized that she’d made it inside. That was
good news for her.

She had another thought. Or perhaps they just
weren’t worried. The labyrinth of caves went on forever…

She shook the thought aside and turned her
attention back to the path in front of her. The ledge led to
another cave farther up the cliff face. These must be the cave
openings she had been able to see when she had stood outside. There
had been four, making a diamond shape, on either side of the
doorway. At the moment, she was at the farthest left-hand one.
Hugging her body against the wall, and hoping that none of the
party below looked up and spotted her in the dim light, she made
her way to the next opening above her.

She slunk inside – and immediately found
herself back out on another ledge. She looked down and had a wave
of nausea rush over her. Heights were not her strong suit. She
waited until the moment passed and she got her wits about her once
more. She was now one cave down, the right-hand point of the left
diamond. This pathway led to a cave below, which she followed and
entered.

And was led straight outside once more. This
time she ended up even higher on the opposite side of the door; the
top point of the right-hand diamond. She gulped and moved forward
again, down the path and to the right.

This one jumped her down to the bottom of the
diamond on the right. She sighed. Was this getting her somewhere?
She moved through the cave and had to pause a moment as her eyes
adjusted to the sudden light of the brightened cave. Her eyes
focused on the statue of a lizard in front of her.

She ground her teeth in frustration. There
didn’t need to be any dangers along this path, the confusing
passageways probably made people so irritated they simply threw
themselves off the cliff! She took a deep breath and closed her
eyes. There must be something she had missed.

She went back out on the ledge and looked
around. She coaxed Marak down into her hand and straightened him
into a pen shape. Then she spelled the tip of his tail to create a
temporary mark where it touched her skin as though he were a pen.
She used him to create a diagram of the caves. Hopefully, the
spells that decided where they would take a person were the same
each time. Soon she would find out.

She retraced her steps, documenting where she
was taken each time on her arm and found that they did indeed
appear to have set direction. That was some good news, except that
it still led her straight back to where she started. As she emerged
from the cave above where the beginning cave was, she accidentally
kicked a loose stone down off the ledge.

It clattered loudly as it bounced its way
down the cliff-side. Katya hastily backed up back into the cave.
And emerged out in another one. Only it wasn’t the one that she had
ended up at the last time she went through this cave.

She pondered this for a moment before
deciding that maybe going through the cave from another one versus
back onto itself caused a different result. The guards down below
had spotted her, and were pointing arrows in her direction. She’d
have to figure this out quickly.

She backed through a few cave openings, and
wrote them down, finally finding herself back in the room with the
little mouse on a pedestal. She hurriedly reviewed the notes on her
arm, which was completely covered in blackish ink now. Letting
Marak resume his normal position, she memorized the route she would
need – which was ridiculously easy once she figured it out – and
stepped back onto the ledge.

And immediately stepped back in, finding
herself at the complete opposite side of the door and at the far
right cave of that diamond shape. Then she did it again, stepping
back into the same cave. This time she had to walk through about
ten steps before she emerged on yet another ledge, and she found
herself in a completely different area. She seemed to be about
half-way down a gorge cut through the mesa, a sheer cliff face
above and below her, and another across the way.

There was another cave visible on the
opposite cliff, directly across from her over a large chasm. She
backed through the cave, testing it, but only found herself back
out at the original caves where the guards seemed to now be
entering the caves after her. It wouldn’t be long now before they
caught up to her.

She looked around for some other means of
crossing the gap. There were vines on some of the cliff, but not
close enough for her to reach, and even if she could use magic to
get them, they weren’t long enough, nor could she attach them
anywhere to be of any use.

She put a toe out onto the air in front of
her. It hit something hard. She tapped her foot around some more
and found that it appeared to be solid, though invisible.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” she mumbled to
herself. She could hear the shouting of the guards in the cave
behind her and she steeled her courage.
Of all the things…
she thought as she stepped out onto thin air.

CHAPTER 10

Natalya was jostled awake by someone shaking
her shoulder violently.

“Wake up,” Lord Morven ordered, pulling both
her and Alina to their feet roughly. They complied and he led them
out of the carriage and down a long stone pathway through a maze of
gardens. It was really quite beautiful and Natalya felt a pang of
annoyance that such an awful man should be able to have such a
wonderful place available to him.

He brought them to a room and threw them
inside. Alina stumbled as her foot caught the edge of the carpet
and Natalya rushed forward to catch her. She turned to glare at the
man for his insensitivity, but he had already slammed the door in
their faces.

“Are you alright?” she asked Alina, holding
her shoulders protectively and looking into her sister’s eyes. Pain
brimmed behind their surface which she could see her sister trying
hard to conceal, and she nearly started shaking with rage.

“I’m fine,” Alina lied to her, dropping her
gaze to the floor.

Natalya drew her close for a hug, holding
onto her fiercely as though she could squeeze all the bad things
that had happened to her out. She held on, even as Alina tried to
pull back, knowing that she would have to cause her sister more
pain.

“Alina,” she began, “I have something I have
to tell you…”

“Our parents are dead,” her sister whispered,
still not meeting her eyes. “I know. Morven was sure to tell me
about it in great detail. He said that it hadn’t been his intended
outcome of the day he took me, but that it had come as a welcome
surprise. Although he said he wished he had taken our mother too
before it happened, and made sure to explain exactly what he would
have done to her afterwards,” she spat out. Her lips turned
slightly upwards in a sadistic smile. “He did apparently get in
quite a bit of trouble because of what he did with me, though, so
that’s something.” She looked to Natalya, her huge eyes pleading
with her, “Did anyone make it?”

Natalya shook her head sadly. “I went there a
few weeks ago to help identify…” she had a hard time getting the
word out, “bodies. They completely demolished everything.”

“Did they…” Alina’s voice shook, “did they
suffer much?”

Natalya shook her head, glad she could tell
her the truth. “It happened fast. The Faithful wanted to be in and
out, so it was mercifully quick.”

“That’s good.” Alina fell silent.

After a few minutes of silence as they both
mourned the loss of their parents and their friends, her sister
spoke again. “Why were you riding with a bunch of Knights?”

Natalya smiled, pleased to talk about
something more happy with her. “It’s a long story…” she said and
launched into everything that had gone on after Alina had been
kidnapped.

“So you’ve been looking for me this whole
time?” Alina asked her, the appreciation in her tone causing
Natalya to reach out to hug her once more.

“Of course,” she agreed, “And I would never
have stopped looking.” Talking about the events that had transpired
with the Queen made her sense of duty kick in. Alina had been at
Castle Storm before Lord Morven had come and taken her back for
whatever cruel purpose he now had in store for them. Perhaps she
would know something about Lord Telvani’s plans or what he had been
doing with the Death-bringers. “Do you know what Lord Telvani was
up to?”

Alina cringed at the name, but the fear in
her eyes was different from when she looked at Morven.

“I don’t know exactly,” she began, “but I do
know some. He was collecting talents – like me – in order to force
them to help him perform a control spell. He never actually told us
who he was trying to control, but there was enough talk around us
that I’m fairly certain that he was intending to influence the
Queen’s Council.”

Natalya nodded. That would make sense, and
corresponded with what Queen Layna had said about the Council
members all suddenly being more complacent to his wishes while she
and the King were incapacitated. She had a sudden thought and
interrupted her sister’s narration, “You are talented!” she
exclaimed, “You can get us out of here!”

Alina just shook her head sadly. “They have
me drugged, I can’t use it. And even if I could, I’m not sure what
I would do…they only trained us to do what they wanted.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed. “So what
happened? What exactly are the Death-bringers?”

“Death-bringers?” Alina asked, her face
scrunching up in thought. “You mean the Bricrui – that’s what Lord
Farthen called them – the people who caught the sickness and became
monsters?”

“Yes,” Natalya agreed, “The townspeople
called them Death-bringers.”

Alina looked horrified. “Why did the
townspeople even know? Did he release them?”

“Apparently one was released to warn the
people what would happen if they told Farthen’s secret. It killed
six people in town before it was contained.”

“How awful,” Alina gasped, and Natalya was
impressed that she could think anything was awful after what had
been done to her. She continued, “Farthen discovered that after a
while of performing the spell, the person who did it suddenly
became ill. It began with headaches and nausea, progressing to a
fever and sweats, and finally to pustules developing all over the
body, the eyes filling with blood, and the brain turning to mush,
making the person a blood-thirsty crazed lunatic.”

“Lord Telvani was in the royal prison, turned
into one of these…Bricrui.”

“Is that what happened to him?” Alina
laughed, and though Natalya was glad to hear the sound from her
sister, the subject and the tone of it were disturbing. “Farthen
had those of us who were talented performing both the control spell
and practicing directing more magic to the person doing it. Telvani
was eventually the one to do the real spell, and they chose me to
be his amplifier.”

“Was it bad?” Natalya asked, afraid to hear
the answer.

Alina held out her arms so that Natalya’s
attention was drawn once more to the burned scars covering them.
“The spell required the use of blood-magic, but luckily my portion
of this was just to cause pain with melted wax. Someone else
donated the blood…”

Natalya shuddered. “So he actually spelled
the Council members?”

“He did.”

“Do you know how to break it?”

“There are objects that he used for it…I
think that if they were to be found…” she left the thought
unfinished.

Natalya finally asked the question she had
been dreading. “So will you turn into one of the Bricrui?”