Dusk Falling (Book 1) (12 page)

“I am not a Yierhna. If you do not desire a slow death, don’t ever call me that again. I hate them.”

“Hate them?” The mage thought, “And with a frightful passion! If he’s not a Yierhna then what…? No, could it be! Jrahda! A Dark Elf! That’s why he hates them so much! One of his parents must have been a Dark Elf.” The hatred of the Yierhna was ingrained in every Jrahda’s blood. It had always been that way when the first Jrahda had been created. Being of Jrahda blood would also explain his Elven features and the grayish color around his eyes and the tips of his ears, the white mane. A full-blooded Dark Elf would be entirely of that gray color. “Would you rather I call you Jrahda? Or will you admit to a name?”

“I have no name. At least, none I care to share with you.” The captive said flatly.

“Fine then. It really doesn’t matter.” She tapped her heels to the mare’s sides and they continued on. To herself, “What a nasty tempered Elf! Well, he can just sulk all the way back to the Hold. See if I ever try to be civil to him ever again. Right now I need to focus on breaking this spell. I should be able to do this. An illusion spell loses its greatest power once it’s found for what it truly is.”

Five minutes passed then the Jrahda-trethen spoke up, causing Aya’s shoulders to hunch in irritation. “As soon as you tire of wandering in circles, maybe you could try to cancel the illusion.”

She pulled up Trinket.

“Or do you like wandering in circles? I am sure it’s amusing to whoever is watching.”

“Ugh! Do you ever say anything that isn’t dripping with criticism?!” Aya burst out without thinking. “Unless you have something useful to say I’d appreciate you keeping quiet.”

He did remain quiet. For a whole of three breaths. “Mages must not be very good where you come from. I could have broken out of here the moment I knew it to be a trap. Not that I would have walked into a trap like this to begin with.”

Aya gritted her teeth. “And how may I ask, would you go about doing so?”

“Release the Asrai’s Seal and I’ll show you.”

“Not likely.” Determined to prove her skills, Aya dismounted and moved over to run her hand along the trunk of one of the trees. It felt like a real tree. She touched a shiny leaf. It felt like a real leaf.

But it wasn’t real. The entire forest was only an illusion. It was all in their minds.

Aya knelt down, back to the tree. She eyed her watching captive. Privately, she hoped the rope would indeed hold and she closed her eyes.

The gentle melody of the forest drifted by her ears and she had to force the noise away in order to concentrate. Carefully, she lowered her mental barriers just slightly. She tested her senses again and met the same wall as before.

Gathering her energies, she threw them at the wall with all the might she could. Aya felt it hit. Sending out a tendril, she drew back quick when the wall again sought to shock her. She tried her attack once more and met with the same frustrating ending. It was a draining effort that succeeded only in its failure.

Aya opened her eyes in disappointment. The white haired Elfkin had awkwardly taken up a spot on the ground and stared at the dirt. Aya had the distinct feeling that even though he wasn’t looking directly at her, he was still watching her. “Alright, you, if you know how to defeat the illusion, tell me. Otherwise your chances are slim to none in surviving. The same as mine.”

“I can’t tell you. I can only show you.” He said.

“At least try.”

“An illusionist uses a victims own energies to feed the spell. If the victim realizes he is only being attacked by his own fears, the spell loses its power.”

Aya eyed him and then, out of the blue, asked. “Tell me your name.”

“Wha-?” The Elfkin was taken off balance by the sudden question. Puzzled, he raised his head.

“Your name.” She said again. “I can’t trust what you say, so I want to know your name.”

It didn’t make much sense to him until he thought about it. By knowing someone’s name, it creates a familiarity. A bond, albeit a thin one. Perhaps his ploy would work after all… “I don’t really go by anything. No one calls me by my given name.”

“Is there something I can call you? I am tired of just calling you ‘you’”

“Call me whatever you want.” He responded, growing testy with the conversation. He shifted under the tight confines of the rope, bunching the white clothe of his shirt, a Bren-made shirt.

The Pass of Genlo, named for the Bren explorer who helped the native people of Barda learn to become the best of fisherman, reared in her thoughts. Good as any, she thought. “Then I’ll call you Genlo for the Pass we had found you in.”

“Lovely. Now there’s something I wanted to be reminded of…”

“Reminded! That’s it! I think I know how to break the spell.”

Chapter 9

Serrtin sat in an area personally cleared of trees. She had realized something was wrong and that she couldn’t leave the area. She knew she would not be able to rejoin her friends. That they would have to find her. Magic simply was simply not her forte.

It was frustrating, the wait and the not knowing. Hence the assault on the trees.

The first sign of change was the complete halt of the breeze. Serrtin, who sat upon a stump chin on her fist, came to her feet immediately. The leaves stopped waving and then the ever-present shine paled and they turned brown.

The world around her then disappeared. It was black all around and above, then there was light. It was an odd light given off by the strange ‘formations’ of the ground. The flickering light reflected off something ten feet away.

“Serrtin!” Called a voice. It was Agemeer.

~ ~ ~

“What’s going on?” Genlo asked softly as the forest began to dim around them. The girl sat nearby, hands folded quietly, a concentration line marring her thin black eyebrows. Her mare shifted on its hooves nervously. He couldn’t tell what she was doing without his Sealed abilities but whatever it was it seemed to be having some kind of effect.

A call behind him startled him to his feet.

“Aya! Thank the Gods!” Serrtin moved to the mages side and knelt, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?” She turned narrowed eyes to the Jrahda-trethen.

The girl smiled weakly. It had taken a lot more than she had expected but she succeeded. His- Genlo’s- thoughts had provoked the answer to reveal itself to her. The spell lost power when one no longer believed it was real and once that happened it could be turned in on itself when ‘reminded’ of the team being together. She tried to explain what she had learned, dropping the Elfkin’s new name in the process.

“Who?”

“Oh… um,” The mage started, a little embarrassed. “I… got tired of calling him ‘you’ and he wouldn’t tell me… um.” She half-shrugged.

The Yarcka eyed the captive with a raised scaly brow though she addressed Aya. “Really. Why did you even bother.”

The mage couldn’t find an answer this time. Agemeer interjected. “Perhaps now would be a good time for us to judge our current situation. It is much the same as the forest illusion. I cannot tell if this is another illusion or something else entirely.”

Aya and Serrtin rose, the former much slower. The purple shades drifted up and down the sandrock formations, reflecting onto the team but never lighting up the sky above. Every slight movement from the team was made all the louder by the absolute silence that reigned.

“It’s a trap spell hidden beneath an illusion. No single person could have done this alone.” Genlo remarked, hating having to offer up answers to the enemy but he knew in this unusual circumstance he would have to. It was better to assist his amateur captors here and then have the opportunity to kill them later than being caught like a rat in a trap by the ones who had been doggedly hunting him for the past two years. The ones who were truly behind his capture plot would not be so opportuned. Perhaps- no, definitely- they were the hiring party behind the Circuit Hunters, which made them unknowingly in league to the very ones he hated most.

“Why do I get the feeling you know who is behind this?” Serrtin asked suspiciously. The Elfkin did not respond despite her having seemingly picked his very thoughts from the air. A few quick steps and she had him by the collar. “Friends of yours?”

“Hardly.” He answered with a derisive curl of his lip.

“Then who? They are interfering with a Circuit-sanctioned mission.”

“I really don’t think they give a damn.” When he didn’t offer anything further she released his collar before the urge to throttle him overpowered her. “But I’ll tell you one thing, it’s going to take a better mage than you got to undo this trap before it slams totally shut.”

Aya’s cheeks burned at the obvious shot to her magehood. “This isn’t my field of expertise! I can’t be expected to know every faucet of magic! That
jerk
, he had no right to say…” Aya’s mind retaliated. “I figured out the illusion part and how to reunite the team! But, that
was
with his help… Still, he didn’t have to say it like that.”

Agemeer was thinking roughly the same thing as he looked off into the distance, hoping to pierce the darkness with his Wulf’s eyes. But darkness remained.

“And what are you suggesting, captive? That we trust you to help us out? That isn’t gonna happen.” Serrtin said, glaring down at him as if daring him to say otherwise.

Genlo shook his head with a false solemness. “What a pity. What irony! Trap spells happen to be a specialty of mine.”

Aya chewed her bottom lip- what if he was telling the truth? What if he was the only one here qualified to destroy the trap they’d fallen in to?

“Agemeer, pass me Kcrie’s flask. We’ll have to wake her again.”

“Ah, yes, the Asrai.” Genlo said snidely. “Always running to the Fae when you get yourselves in trouble. It’s sickening.”

“What did you say, you little-”

“No, Serrtin. He’s right. In a way.” Aya declared. “We can’t always depend on Kcrie to help us out. She already does so much for us.”

“I know that,” The saurian replied. “But I don’t think she’d fault us in our current situation. If our
Elven companion’s
comrades out there catch us there’s no telling what’ll happen- to her and us. She’s still a part of our team.”

“Stupid lizard,” Genlo thought to himself “She isn’t going for it. Maybe if I…” Outloud, he said, “Yes, yes, hide behind the watery shirttails of a more powerful being. Such is a Yarcka’s lot in life.”

The trethen immediately regretted his words, thinking perhaps he had gone too far. Serrtin’s eyes widened, the pupils almost engulfing the irises. Her lips pulled taught over sharp incisors. Drawing in a breath, she held it and before he could react he was staring at the point of a very large blade. The saurian’s muscles flexed as she leaned
forward. Shifting her grip, it would take only a single step for her to thrust the point through his throat. The others were dead silent.

Genlo could feel the sweat running down his spine as he held the saurian’s unshakeable gaze. He’d never much felt fear and now he was quite sure he didn’t like it.

“Listen to me, Elf,” She spoke, her voice deadly calm. Her rage was in check but the power it gave her was none-the-less frightening. “If you want to continue your life, such as it is, never
ever
call a Yarcka a coward. There are few of us who would have paused before slicing you in half. Be mindful of that.”

Slowly, she lowered her blade. When all began to breathe once more she whipped her blade up, cutting clean through the ropes across the Jrahda-trethen’s chest. In the same motion, Serrtin sheathed her sword across her back.

Genlo had felt the air whip past his body. It had stirred his long mane of white hair. The precision the Yarcka had employed had injured neither him nor his clothing. The ropes fell to the ground and Genlo couldn’t help following it to his knees. His arms ached and burned. He could barely move them. Flexing his fingers as blood began to circulate, he looked up questioning her motives.

“If you are going to be of use to us, here, now, then you may need the use of your hands.” She explained without emotion. To Aya, “I don’t know what you’re planning but be careful. We can ill afford to make a mistake.”

Agemeer’s eyes were drawn to their youngest companion. Her eyes were slightly pinched, her frame taught. Serrtin had seen ‘the plan’ forming with only a glance in Aya’s direction. Truly, she knew the mage-girl well. “So, Aya dear, do you have something in mind?”

The mage laid a small hand on the necklace at her throat. For a moment it seemed to flicker brighter but perhaps it was only the lights of the ground formations. Truly told, she had been scheming something. “Something Kcrie had told me once… about her powers to Seal magics…” Aya began slowly, gathering her thoughts as she spoke. “Kcrie never really offered much insight but would sometimes answer my questions. I do not wish to divulge too much at the moment,” She said with a glance toward Genlo that didn’t quite last long enough for eye contact. “but for… um… special cases, the Binding spell is placed upon an outside influence.”

“Meaning…?” Serrtin asked.

“I can have influence over the spell.” She said with a gesture of her hand. “In theory.”

Serrtin moved closer, making sure their captive hadn’t forgotten her. He had a look on his face the saurian didn’t like. “What kind of influence?”

“Ever been to the Water Town of Arion in Indelsis?”

“I journeyed there once many many summers ago when I was still young. A lovely place such as no other.” Agemeer said with an unconscious wag of his tail. “Roads were small streams. Fountains and ‘falls abundant. I believe it sat directly atop a tributary coming in from the northern ocean of Korest.”

“Mm, hmm.” Aya nodded. “When the tides come in during a season of heavy rain, deluges can become flooded especially to the lower parts of the city. The original architects had to come up with a way to keep the water in check without ruining its aesthetical waterways or eroding the deluge foundations. They implemented a flood gate system that’s still employed to this day.”

“Correct! It’s quite a system too! The Gates are monitored by a special group of people who keep watch on the tides and weather. Oh I would truly love to see Arion once more.”