Feynard (66 page)

The Lurk glanced back. “Perhaps half a turn and no more, good outlander.”

“Then we must force the issue.”

“Attack him?”

“No
…”

“Distract him?”

“We need to get Brian away from Alliathiune and protect her somehow. She is the key to the Forest’s survival.”

Please let him be right about this. W
hen Akê-Akê had called her a parasite, and Kevin had objected that Dryads ‘embodied the living spirit of the Forest’, Alliathiune’s reaction had been one of fury and wonder. It must be. Nothing else made sense–blast these Forest creatures and their secrets and taboos!

“An exchange,
” Brian boomed. “I propose an exchange, right now.”

Kevin
stared at his brother. His brain clicked into overdrive. He could nearly smell the thoughts burning across his synapses. Pull out the conclusion, Kevin. Why the hurry, unless Brian and the Drakes were not as aligned as they had assumed? Dear God, here was a complication that they had not even begun to consider! Time … he had to play for time …

Brian made his cloak flare dramatically, ever the
Dark Apprentice. “The Magisoul for the Dryad!” he shouted. “That is my offer–my only offer.”

“A moment’s discussion!”
Kevin shouted back, and mouthed to Snatcher, “Trust me. When I give the word, Snatcher, I’ll grab Alliathiune and keep her from being hung. Free her if I can. You have the speed of a Lurk. I need you to get the Magisoul, wherever it is. Just don’t stand and face him, or you’ll be blasted to smithereens.”

“But what will you do?”

“I–”

“Enough whispering!” Brian roared. “What have you decided?”

“He fears the Drakes’ arrival,” Kevin muttered, and turned to his brother. “Accepted, Brian! Her life for the Magisoul–and no tricks!”

Alliathiune gave a small shriek of despair. She still did not know,
Kevin thought, or if she did she was too scared of losing the Magisoul to think of the future. If Brian killed her now, the Elliarana grove would be utterly destroyed. Breaking the
laik-Sälïph
had to be their first priority. To do that they needed their hands–his blue hand, specifically–on the Dryad.

“No tricks?” Brian laughed, but there was an oily sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Don’t you trust me, little brother?”

Not in a million years. Kevin lied, “Of course I trust you! I’m putting the Magisoul down here, see?”

“Slowly!”

Lifting the gleaming gem from Snatcher’s reluctant paw, Kevin deposited it on a grassy spot and stepped back, scrutinizing his brother’s reaction from beneath eyelashes hooded like a cobra’s gaze. “There,” he said, holding up his empty hands. “Now, what would you have us do?”

“Trade places, that’s what
.”

“Shall we go to the left and you to the right?”

“No, I will go left.”

To the hand sinister,
Kevin remembered reading in his tome of wizardry, the preferred side of the dark arts. He had nothing against left-handed people himself. It was wizards he did not trust.

So a languid dance developed. One step was matched to its opposite, like an indolent whirlpool measured foot by foot in suspicion and hair-trigger readiness.
Snatcher kept pace with Kevin. Brian’s hand kept twitching on his staff, and his eyes jumped to the skies every few seconds to check where the Drakes were. This became harder and harder to do as they circled round, forcing him to glance over his shoulder each time. Kevin felt like watch wound to its fullest. It did not help that as he approached Alliathiune, she fixed a reproachful expression upon her face. But she could not move much for fear of falling.

They were five paces from Alliathiune when
Kevin adjudged the time to be right. “Good grief, Brian!” he screamed, waving his arms in simulated panic. “There’s a Drake right behind you!”

Brian whirled.

Snatcher blasted out of a standing start with power that no champion athlete could hope to match. Kevin ran to Alliathiune and tried to loosen the noose.

“Quickly!” she gasped.

He glanced over his shoulder. Brian had about a second to react. The first half-second was wasted realising what was happening. But the next saw him slam up a shield to deflect the Lurk from his flight. The Dark Apprentice was toppled like a bowling-pin, but instead of being crushed, his shield made the Lurk skid off him as though he had landed on a pane of glass. Brian twisted on the grass and pointed the staff.

Fire thundered
forth. In his fury, Brian did not withhold an ounce of his power. In the supercharged magical atmosphere of Elliadora’s Well, that was tantamount to loosing a hurricane. Yet amazingly, Kevin’s magic protected him. What he had learned beneath Shadowmoon Keep, the ability to slide magic around him and misdirect its main force, saved his life. The flames rocketed off to either side of the Arch of Indomalion, vaporising soil and grass and melting rock as they licked hungrily against the path leading upward to the lake rim.

But then the attack changed. Brian tugged the grass beneath his feet away like a rug. Kevin’s forehead smacked the stool’s rim and he landed heavily, only to be flipped up in the air. Strange, the Arch of Indomalion was shrinking. Alliathiune grew huge
, rushing toward him. His hands flailed helplessly. Somewhere nearby, the Lurk’s battle-roar rang around the Sacred Well. Fire and lighting crackled across his vision.

Kevin’s hands slapped something soft. He clung there, staring into a pink, ridged cavern. A Dragon’s mouth? His thoughts were confused, scattered across the Hills. His perch moved; a blast of air ruffled his curls, and a voice that sounded like the rushing of wind whispered, “Oh, Kevin …”

“Alliathiune?” he squeaked.

Why on Earth did he sound like a mouse?

Brian roared words and spells, holding off what sounded like a Druid and Unicorn attack. At the Well his power was immense. With an earthquake he brought the Unicorns to their knees, and with a thunderclap of sound, immobilised the Druids. The Dark Apprentice flicked his fingers toward a squad of X’gäthi warriors, swatting them to the ground with monstrous ease.

“Drop!” hissed the … mouth? Kevin stared. “Now!”

And his perch moved in a pouting motion. “Noooooo …!”

Kevin howled as he fell, but he landed exactly between two soft, springy hills. His feet were wedged in the gap. He pressed with his elbows and struggled with all
of his strength. Nearby, he heard the throbbing of a gigantic drumbeat. What was this?

“Stop tickling,” boomed the whisper.

“Where’s that poxy little brother of mine?” Brian roared. “I’ll kill him!”

Kevin gaped upward.
He saw a giant chin, framed by well-remembered green hair, and the truth struck him with the force of a Lurk’s charge. He knew exactly where he had landed. How–that was a different issue. He was the size of a Human thumb, and neatly trapped in the Dryad’s cleavage. He had never appreciated Alliathiune from quite this perspective before, he thought, feeling his ears heat up fit to burst into flame! Noticing Brian staring over at the Dryad, he wriggled harder, finally managing to work his feet free. He clambered down into Alliathiune’s underwear, finding there a small space which just about fit his body.

He chuckled softly. This was going to take a Forest-sized apology–if they survived.

Odd, the whole dress and her underwear appeared to be one integral piece of material. How did the Dryads manage that, he wondered? Now was time to consider that.

Kevin put his
miniature blue hand to the rondure of Alliathiune’s left breast, and set his mind and will–trying to ignore his distraction and no little fear at how easily he could be crushed in his current size–to undoing the terrible spell with which Brian had bound the Dryad to the Elliarana. By the change in her breathing, he knew she must sense what he was doing. She did not look down.

But he realised at once he
could not reverse the spell, because he did not know how it was constructed. But he could nullify the key elements. Wait. That would require that he absorb the magic. As Zephyr had so patiently lectured him, something could not be turned into nothing. There would be consequences. He had to be prepared to bleed the power away, very carefully, or he would hurt Alliathiune.

Right, time to unravel Brian’s handiwork.

Concentrating fiercely on his work, Kevin nevertheless had opportunity to appreciate the complex artistry of Brian’s
laik-Sälïph.
It beggared belief–how did a moron like Brian come to such a mastery of magic? He would have bet Great-Grandmother’s entire fortune that Brian could not light a light bulb without an instruction manual written for idiots. Could it be that the Kraleon was his mentor? Or Harold? How long had Brian been on Feynard, perfecting his dark arts?

He was concentrating so hard, it was only when Alliathiune hissed in pain that he realised he had set her underwear alight with his diffusion of the spell’s inherent power.

Kevin quickly swatted the flames. Stupid!

“Aha!” called Brian. “I see where he is now. I’ll
splatter my brother like a pesky grimfly!”

Turning about, Kevin saw he had also charred a hole in her dress.
Here came Brian, striding over toward the Dryad, bringing the Magisoul along with his magic, as though it were a dog on the leash. Casual use of power, he thought. Brian showing off yet again.

As Alliathiune moved, Kevin slipped through the hole he had created. He caught himself on her belt, right next to the Unicorn horn, singed himself another hole, and reached in to touch her belly with his hand.
He had to hurry. It was now or never.

“By the Hills!” howled the Dryad as Kevin
accidentally seared her flesh.

“Sorry.”

But he had destroyed the
laik-Sälïph
and its bindings upon the Elliarana
.
Kevin checked over his shoulder. Brian was close, murder blazing in his eyes. He needed to escape. He needed a Unicorn. Reaching out to the limit of his tiny arm’s length, Kevin touched the horn and willed Zephyr forth.

Instead, he felt a frightful power seize him and drag him down into t
he horn!

*  *  *  *

He was in an indeterminable place. All around him was soft, milky illumination upon a formless and perfectly uniform haze. There was neither sense of movement nor sense of time’s passage. Damp-slick, gnarled trunks rose all around him, a circle of trees ancient beyond knowing, and from the prickling, cloying chill along his spine he knew himself to be in a special, powerful, place–yet all remained insubstantial, as though the merest breath might send these visions back to the mists.

Kevin blinked.
Huh?

Here came the peerless Unicorn, peering between the boles of those ancient trees as though all the goodness in the world had coalesced into equine form. His white coat was pristine and undamaged, quite unlike how the Kraleon must have left him after that attack on the island. Zephyr lived!

Zephyr! Oh, Zephyr!
He cried out.
You’re alive!

Kevin knew how he had come to be there, but he could not have imagined this result. Had his dream somehow taken place inside a Unicorn’s horn?

The Unicorn asked,
How did you come to be here? This place is taboo for all but the Tomalia. How do you know my name? I had forgotten … everything. How could I forget?

In a flash
of insight, it came to Kevin what must have happened. If the ancient Unicorns had indeed travelled between the stars by utilising this unique technique–akin to hibernation or suspended animation, then they must have had a means of waking themselves, perhaps a process of preparation that prevented their forgetting. Zephyr had taken to the horn in great distress. Preparation was impossible. Perhaps those other Unicorns had been unprepared, too. If so, then he might have stumbled upon a path they could take back to living. But what had he done?

You must leave or you too may begin to forget.

We need you!
Kevin stared at Zephyr.
You must return to the Forest! The Forest needs you! Please, Zephyr, I beg you, use your magic to return.

The Unicorn shook his head sadly.
I don’t know how. No Unicorn knows how.

Kevin delved within himself. He delved deep and long, trying to dredge out every detail of what he remembered of that power which had dragged him within the Unicorn’s horn; he remembered the falling into a tiny hole, the enfolding layers of ancient magic, words in the language of Tomalia he
could not even begin to understand.

I … I will show you.

And he moved over to his friend.

Zephyr’s eyes
were huge and dreamlike, filled with knowledge and wisdom, and yet as innocent as a child’s. Hesitantly, Kevin touched the Unicorn’s flank and willed himself to show what he had experienced. In the dream-space, it was possible. Images and impressions rushed between their minds. The Unicorn trembled beneath his touch. Suddenly, Kevin found himself showing more, much more, a deluge of what had happened since he had last seen Zephyr.