Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (12 page)

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Any march into the deep dark normally took
two full days, and they’d gone two and a half beyond that, pressing
forward from their last sortie. Trig was leading when he heard
water in the distance, the rush and tumble of it as it fell over a
ledge and splashed into a pool. The cavern of Crai Force was coming
up and would be a good place to make camp.

He signaled a halt, and one by one the
dreamstone blades behind him were extinguished, slipped into
covered sheaths to conceal their blue light. He sheathed his own
blade last, plunging the small band of Quicken-tree warriors into
total darkness. A frisson of unease skittered up his spine. ’Twas
something he never got used to, the complete absence of light this
far down in the caves. The higher caverns and tunnels were riddled
with veins of quartz that held dreamstone light for hours,
life-sustaining light. The deep dark had naught but a darkness so
coldly empty it sucked the life out of a man’s bones. No
Quicken-tree, not even Liosalfar, could survive in it for more than
a fortnight, not even with dreamstones. The gates of time, the last
outpost before the Magia Wall, were a refuge from the darkness, a
sanctuary capable of reversing the ill effects of a too-long
journey. Trig had abided there once during the Wars, letting the
timelessness of the place seep into his bones and bring him around
from a hazardous descent.

“Bedwyr,” he said, and the man came down a
short flight of stairs that had been cut into the rock. “Crai Force
ahead at twenty paces. Take Math and Nia and scout toward the
falls. Llynya and I will circle around to the south.”

“What of Shay and Mychael ab Arawn?”

“They’ll have the old worm beyond our track
boundary by now, and know to return by way of the passages we
marked. If memory serves, the cavern ahead is no more than a
quarterlan long, too small for them to miss us.” Trig had assigned
the two to the firelines to keep Mychael and the blade-master from
each other. He had enough to worry him, what with Naas’s vision of
five nights past.

“The ab Arawn boy would as soon live in the
dark,” Bedwyr said, his tone one of gruff condemnation.

’Twasn’t the first time Bedwyr had
complained, and if pressed, Trig would have agreed. Mychael ab
Arawn had an affinity with the depths of the earth that went far
beyond what any Quicken-tree could bear, and for certes he had an
affinity with the timeless place that was the Weir. The truth of
that marked him clear enough.

“Make no mistake,” Trig said. “Mychael ab
Arawn is not a child. He’s a man full grown, and we haven’t seen
the half of him yet.” Not even close to half, if Naas knew what she
was about. Trig had his doubts; Rhuddlan less so, but the old woman
had barely spoken two words in the last fifteen years, and then
she’d conjured a vision that was no more than a story any child
knew and laid it at Rhuddlan’s feet as if ’twas doom itself. Trig
was holding judgment, but he was watching the boy as well.

Aye, he was watching the boy and every turn
in the trail.

“Man?” Bedwyr snorted. “He and Shay are more
like young pups than men, pups with no more sense than to follow
their noses into trouble.”

Trig recognized the fear in Bedwyr’s easy
dismissal, fear of the unknown, for Mychael ab Arawn was surely
that. Many of the Quicken-tree had been unsure of taking him into
their company, the stranger who had come to them from out of the
deep dark in the heat of battle, a man raised among the hooded
brothers of Strata Florida. He had not the gentle soul of his
sister. Far from it. Trig had stood for him, though, and would
again if needed. More than any other, Mychael ab Arawn had the
right of their fellowship and, if necessary, their protection. He
was the son of Rhiannon, the last seer of Carn Merioneth. He had
proven adept at Druidic lore, and thus, like his mother, he was of
use to the Quicken-tree—but the son was no meek thing to follow in
anyone’s footsteps. Madron despaired of ever turning him to her
will or his duty. Even Rhuddlan was unable to tame the boy, but not
for much longer. Ailfinn Mapp was coming, and there was not a boy
or man alive that the Prydion Mage could not bring to heel.

The blood ran strong in Rhiannon’s son,
aright, mayhaps stronger than in any who had come before him. ’Twas
what Naas had told them, that the boy would prove to have the stuff
of legends in him.

“Dragon’s blood,” Trig muttered. ’Twas what
set Bedwyr to twitching and what had kept himself awake for three
nights in the deep dark and the night he’d spent above since the
old woman had conjured her vision on the east wall.

Chiding himself for getting set in his ways,
he reached out and unerringly clasped Bedwyr’s shoulder, his senses
of hearing and smell and a heightened awareness of proximity taking
up where sight left off in the all-pervasive darkness. “We’re a
half day from the next crystal shaft. After we check it, we’ll head
back to Lanbarrdein.”

Bedwyr agreed, mayhaps too quickly, calling
Math and Nia forward to go on with him and leaving Trig to wonder
if his second in command had grown overly skittish. Or mayhaps
Bedwyr was only feeling the same unease Trig felt being so far down
in the deep dark. Or mayhaps ’twas something else altogether. Damn
vision.

They had been checking the western shafts,
amethystine tubes of crystal, all summer. Now Rhuddlan was having
them go deeper with every sortie, searching farther afield for
trouble, when trouble was at their very door.

If Rhuddlan had let him skewer one of the
wolfpack runners, they would have known a few things quick enough,
and instead of looking for breaks in the damson shafts, they might
be in the old tunnels far up under the northern ranges, smoking out
skraelings. He had not forgotten where they lived, the dirty bunch,
and should he live three lifetimes he would ne’er forget how they
smelled. Foul, they were, pungent and odoriferous. He’d slaughtered
hundreds in the last war and would do the same again, if they dared
to mass on Merioneth’s borders.

A sudden infusion of lavender brought his
head around. Llynya had come up beside him, chewing on flower
petals she kept in a small bag hanging from her belt. Trig had
recognized the potion pouch as one of Aedyth’s, but he could not
fathom what benefit there was in chewing petals of lavender. He
used them as a comfit, more often than not dipped in honey.

The sprite had made not a sound with her
approach, the only clue of her nearness being the lavender, and for
that he was grateful. Llynya had always been exceptionally light on
her feet, and he was glad she still had one of her most intrinsic
skills. Between her and Mychael ab Arawn, Trig doubted if they
would leave enough of a trail on wet sand to be followed. In the
caverns, they were both invisible.

He’d checked.

“Take the lead,” he told her. “We’re going to
the south, away from the falls. Don’t forget to read—”

“The marks at the end of the passage and just
inside the cavern,” she finished for him. “I have not forgotten,
Trig.”

Youth, he thought. Youth and impetuosity, and
impertinence. She’d nearly drawn her dagger on Bedwyr, so Trey had
said. Aye, and that must have given even the blade-master a start,
to have an Yr Is-ddwfn aetheling set to flash steel.

A fresh burst of lavender told Trig she’d
popped another bit of flower in her mouth. He would not have
brought her so soon into the deep dark, but Rhuddlan had insisted,
and surprisingly—for they seemed never to be of the same
mind—Madron had agreed.

Llynya took the lead and he followed behind.
At the end of the passageway, where it opened into the cavern, she
stopped to read the marks in the rock with her fingers.

“ ’Tis called Crai Force and is a quarterlan
long,” she said, and Trig nodded to himself. He had not forgotten.
“The water is fresh and good and always runs, and in spring can
flood the cave.”

She continued forward, smoothing her hand
along the wall.

“There’re a few lines of history,” she went
on. “A couple of battles. Comings and goings. Who made camp in the
cavern. Here’s something interesting: Stept Agah, the last of the
Starlight-born, was born beside the falls in the one hundred
twenty-fourth year of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Douvan Kingdom. A
bit before our time, eh, Trig?”

“Aye, before our time, sprite,” he said,
following her into the cave. The sound of tumbling water was louder
in the cavern. A light mist filled the air. Off to Trig’s left,
Bedwyr gave an order, his voice echoing softly back toward the
passage. There was no light, not so much as a flickering leak of
dreamstone blade, and no sense of movement other than the
Quicken-tree. All was as he had expected, yet something struck him
as amiss.

“The Douvan Kingdom is mentioned again
after—”

He reached for Llynya’s hand, silencing her
by pressing his thumb against the inside of her wrist.
There is
danger in the dark
. She grew as still as he.

Trig turned, lifting his nose toward the
center of the cave. With little effort he sorted through and
discarded the green smell of the other Quicken-tree and Llynya’s
lavender. The various scents of earth were always the strongest
ones in the caves, unless
prifarym
or the old worm had
passed through. Neither had been there. The crisp, cleanly sweet
smell of the water followed the earth smell. Beneath the water, he
detected the scent of the rock. It came to him through his nose and
left a faint metallic taste on his tongue. He licked his lips,
exposing more of his tongue to the air. There was nothing more.
Nothing. Nothing except... except...

He took a step deeper into the cavern,
closing his eyes to direct his senses inward. There. At the edge of
rock taste and earth smell lay the barest trace of something dry,
and fine, and bitter.
Sha-shakrieg.

Fear washed through him, sudden and icy.
Spider people.

He released Llynya with a hissed command to
fight and pulled his blade, throwing light into the cave.
Instantly, a long, thin filament dropped out of the dark above him
and wrapped around his arm.

“Bedwyr!” he roared as another filament
caught him around the leg. “
Khardeen! Khar
—” His war cry was
cut short by a filament wrapping around his throat. Llynya dashed
in and slashed at it with her dagger. She freed him with a clean
cut and twisted her body away before the next thread could catch
her.

A scream of pure defiance tore through the
air, and Trig whirled around to find its maker. ’Twas Nia, her body
bound by a web of silken Sha-shakrieg threads, with more coming
down out of the dark and wrapping around her, hundreds of them.

Bedwyr and Math were fighting their way clear
of the threads entangling them, trying to reach her even as the
sprite raced across the cavern floor. All to no avail. Nia began
rising toward the ceiling, lifted upward into the dark by the
unseen. She looked to be a star, a brilliant, shining, screaming
star hanging by silvery threads, her body encased in a lustrous
cocoon that reflected a thousand blue flashes of dreamstone light.
Another filament snaked out of the dark and wrapped around her
face, sealing her mouth shut and leaving naught but her final
scream ricocheting through the cavern.

With a curse and a roar, Bedwyr cut the last
of his bonds and let fly with his blade, hurling it beyond Nia to
the darkness above her. Trig heard the knife hit home, and in
seconds the shrouded, lanky form of a Sha-shakrieg fell to the
cavern floor, trailing a silver filament.

A moment’s silence followed the death, then
the Sha-shakrieg dropped out of the dark and were upon them.

A
n hour of walking
brought Mychael and Shay to a place where they could hear a
waterfall up ahead. They’d escaped the old worm by the skin of
their teeth with little more than their pride scorched.

The green smell of Quicken-tree lingered in
the tunnel they were in, a hint of freshness in the cool, damp air
with an underlying scent of lavender that never failed to distract
him. However did men survive with their wits intact outside the
cloister? He did his best to keep away from her, but her damned
lavender was everywhere.

Mychael palmed his dreamstone blade from out
of its sheath and squeezed hard, reheating the dimming light to
signal the others. Ahead of him, Shay did the same, but before
they’d gone five paces, the Quicken-tree youth resheathed his
crystal dagger with a flick of his wrist, covering the glowing haft
and throwing himself into shadow.

“I smell something.”

“So do I,” Mychael said. “Liosalfar, and
mayhaps supper, if we’re in luck.” He didn’t mention lavender, as
Shay was wont to speak of the girl all too often.

“ ’Tis not Quicken-tree,” Shay said.

“Are you sure?”

“Aye.”

“Then what?”

Shay shrugged, looking ahead into the
dark.

“Tua?” Mychael asked. For certes they had an
odd smell.

“No, not tua.” Shay glanced back over his
shoulder at him. “Did you really eat tua?”

“Dozens.”

Shay grimaced before sliding into the
darkness on silent feet.

Mychael smelled nothing beyond the Liosalfar
and Llynya, but he sheathed his knife to cool its light before
following Shay. He’d been with the Quicken-tree long enough to know
their sense of smell was keener than any hound’s, capable of
discerning knowledge from scent in ways beyond his ken. Something
other than tua could be in the caves, yet in all the months he’d
traveled beneath the earth, he’d found naught else of much
substance. A few times he’d felt as though he was being watched,
but he’d never seen anything, not even a trace of someone having
been near. And he had looked, searched for anything or anybody that
might help him find the dragons.