Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) (14 page)

Grumbling to herself, she sent a tendril of
healing magic towards it and sealed the wound. The thing twitched
slightly, feeling the magic touch, but otherwise showed no
indication that it cared one way or the other that it had been
healed. Some were smarter than others.

Kali now focused on where the Bricrui was
headed, and saw that the woman was cowering beneath a table that
had been turned on its side. She looked around the room; there were
no windows or doors other than the one that the Bricrui had just
knocked down. The table and a few chairs were the only furniture.
The woman hadn’t picked a very good place to hide.

Kali contemplated her options. She could
easily just transport the woman out of here, but she didn’t want
her telling anyone what was going on here. The woman would just
have to stick it out a while longer.

She moved over beside the woman and laid a
hand on her, dropping the invisibility spell so that she could work
the transport. The woman gasped at her sudden appearance, and the
beast lunged, but they were already gone. She transported them to
the rooftop of the place, and then ignored the woman while she
searched the manor with her talent for supplies. Finding a
storehouse that was yet untouched by the monsters, she magically
brought a generous amount up.

“There,” she said to the woman, who was
watching her with wide eyes, “you should have plenty of supplies to
make it until their release now.”

The woman stood slowly, “You magically
transported us here?”

“Yes.”

“Then you could get us out!” the woman
exclaimed excitedly, “All we need to do is go beyond the walls over
there and we’ll be free!”

“I’m afraid not, my dear,” Kali contradicted
her. “You can’t leave just yet. But, you are one of pure blood and
will be allowed to live during the cleansing, so rejoice! All you
need do is prove your worth by surviving.”

The woman looked astonished at her words, but
did not have time to reply before Kali transported herself away.
Thoughts of the woman soon left her mind as her musings turned back
to the larger picture.

Would Katya really be able to gather all of
the powerstones from the tribes? She already possessed the Myaamia
and the Kanza, and was reportedly even now searching for a way to
get the Dakelh’s powerstone.

Things were moving too slowly for Kali’s
limited patience. Her plan was hinged on many things happening
exactly as she hoped. And she was worried. Would she really be able
to do it?

*

The trip to the tribe of the Dakelh people
didn’t take as long as Katya would have guessed from the map. As
they approached, a few people filtered out from the village to meet
them. Their expressions were more curious than hostile, a nice
change from the harsh nature of the Kanza leader.

“Greetings,” a woman hailed them from where
she had paused on the edge of the village.

“Hello,” the Dena’ina leader answered for
them, “We are of the Myaamia, the Dena’ina, and Kanza. We come on
important business. May we please speak with your leader?”

“I am she,” the woman replied, drawing up to
her full height and looking at each of them curiously, her gaze
finally resting on Petra. She didn’t comment, however, tearing her
eyes from the unusual sight to focus once more on the Dena’ina
leader as the speaker for them. “What important business?”

The Dena’ina leader explained the situation
once again, and the Dakelh leader listened with quiet concern, her
brow creasing more and more as his narrative progressed.

“The stone we sent for the spell to cure the
baby was not actually used for this purpose?”

“No, indeed it was not,” the Dena’ina leader
shook his head soberly. “Unbeknownst to any but a small group of
people led by Kali of the Myaamia tribe, the spell was altered.
Their agenda is apparently the extinction of the marked, and
possibly all of the Lost Ones. It is our hope that this is not also
the wish of the Dakelh, and you might be willing to help us stop
the horrible curse from spreading farther.”

Katya opened her mouth to add in as extra
incentive the part about the curse spreading up here to them as
well, but the woman spoke before she could spit it out.

“Yes, yes of course we will help you. It
shames us that we were duped into helping to create such a
monstrous enchantment. What can we do?”

“We are gathering all of the powerstones to
try and break the enchantment,” Katya said, “since Kali had all but
one in order to create the spell, it is too powerful for us to
break without all of them.”

The woman’s face fell. “But we cannot just
give you our stone, I fear,” she lamented. “It is essential for our
survival.”

“How so?” inquired Hunter from beside
Katya.

“We rely on the river for our livelihood,”
she explained. “We eat the fish it provides, drink its water, and
use its current to run our machines.”

Katya waited for her to get to the part about
what the powerstone had to do with that.

“The powerstone creates a dam of energy that
keeps the river from flooding and washing away our village. This
dam also creates the pools and current we use. If the stone was to
simply be removed, this dam would immediately break and the village
would be gone.”

“You can’t make another spell to do a similar
thing?” Hunter asked.

It was a question Katya wanted the answer for
as well, though she feared she already knew the answer. A spell on
that kind of scale, maintained indefinitely, would require a
constant power source. Other stones could be used, but they would
have to be recharged continuously. The only way Katya had ever
heard of a constant spell was the barrier between Gelendan and
Treymayne which apparently had been erected by directing actual
rivers of power into the spell itself to continually power it.
However, the only person who knew how it had worked had been
Aileen, and Nuko had killed her. Plus, out here where the energy
ran wild, not in the orderly rivers in Gelendan and Treymayne,
would such a spell hold up?

“We have tried,” the woman answered, “but so
far have been unsuccessful. We had hoped to find a way to do so
that we are not dependent on it, but have not yet found a way. It
is seemingly an impossible task.”

“If we were to find a way to do it, would you
be willing to give us the stone?” Katya asked.

The woman smiled at her thinly. “We would,
but it appears there is no such way. It would be a waste of your
time. Might you be able to collect the other stones and bring them
here, or use a stone infused with our stone’s essence instead?”

The Dena’ina leader shook his head. “The
spell is too powerful, it would need to be all of them, and most
likely it would need to be done nearer to the child than here. We
will simply have to find a way to make your village safe without
the powerstone.”

Others were gathering around them, pouring
out of the village, as news of their arrival spread. It would
appear that the Dakelh did not get many visitors. Several children
gawked and pointed to Petra, but their parents quickly shushed them
and batted away their pointing fingers.

Petra admirably stood tall, pretending not to
notice the stares.

Their group moved into a hut to discuss their
options. As one idea after another was shot down, Katya grew
frustrated. What they really needed was a way to emulate the
barrier spell. She knew that Gryffon and Layna had imitated it for
the dome around the city, but they had used the ideas of the spell
itself, not the concept of how it had been constructed to last
forever. Then a new idea hit her, and she quickly rummaged around
in her bag for her mirror.

Layna answered the call, and Katya quickly
explained what she wanted. Katya waited while the image in the
mirror blurred as Layna went to find Gryffon. A few moments later,
he appeared, holding the baby Phoenix.

“Hello, Katya,” he smiled to her, “What is it
that I can do for you?”

“I need to access the memories of Adrastea,
the dragon-god you hosted who helped to create the barrier between
Gelendan and Treymayne so that we can use the knowledge to create a
similar spell here.”

He look shocked, obviously Layna had simply
put him on, rather than take the time to explain the need. “I’m not
sure it works like that…” he started doubtfully, but she cut him
off.

“At one point your mind held those memories,”
she insisted, knowing that the dragon-god had hopped from host to
host, including one who helped erect the barrier, to the healer
Mila who had helped Layna and Gryffon escape the evil Jezebel, to
the dog Weylyn as a interim host, to Aileen, and then briefly into
Gryffon when Aileen had been murdered before she left this world.
The last remnants of her knowledge on this plane only existed in
Gryffon. Or in Weylyn, Katya fleetingly thought, but any memories
the dog contained were unlikely to be in any form that she could
understand. She continued to Gryffon, “My father helped me to
uncover my lost childhood memories through magical techniques. I
can use these same techniques on you to try and locate the
knowledge.”

Gryffon smoothed out Phoenix’s hair where it
had stuck to the tiny stubble on his chin and caused it to stick
up. “You are welcome to try,” he offered, but didn’t sound overly
hopeful. “Are you able to do it through the mirror like this?”

“I think so,” she answered, deliberating,
then finally nodded firmly. “Yes.”

“What would you like me to do?” he asked,
sitting down cross-legged before her view, and setting Phoenix in
his lap.

“You’ll just need to close your eyes and
relax,” she told him, “and let your mind clear. I will then enter
your mind with you.”

Gryffon’s eyes snapped back open and he
looked at her with a twinge of concern. She understood completely.
As much as you might trust someone, opening your mind to them was
another matter.

“I won’t actually be able to see anything,
except maybe tiny glimpses,” she assured him, “I will just be there
to guide you to the deepest depths of your memories that you
couldn’t normally go on your own. You will be the one who will need
to actually grasp upon the memory to obtain its knowledge.”

He nodded and closed his eyes again, settling
Phoenix into a comfortable position. Katya closed hers as well,
concentrating on his presence through the mirror. She felt a part
of her detach from the rest, floating over the mirror connection to
bond with Gryffon’s aura. She felt the surface thoughts, not able
to tell
what
he was thinking, but able to detect vague
emotions of worry, stress, and love – the last must be from holding
his daughter. Katya hoped she could feel that someday. She shook
the thought aside.

She carefully guided his conscious mind
deeper into his subconscious as Gareth had done with her. As
always, the memory of her father was painful, but less so in that
she was able to keep him alive in her heart by utilizing what she
had learned with him to help someone else.

She searched for anomalies in his memories.
Bearing the memories of generations of hosts that that dragon-god
had used before him must be an unusual experience, and it was bound
to make an impression that she could sense. Sure enough, she soon
came across a huge roiling ball of thoughts, memories, and emotions
hiding behind a thick wall in his mind. She hesitated before
sneaking around it. No doubt it had been erected as a barrier so
that his own thoughts and mind were not overtaken by the past
hosts. She didn’t want to permanently disable this protection, only
temporarily find a way past it.

She felt Gryffon’s presence with her and knew
that he must be able to feel her hesitation. He nudged her with his
mind gently, prodding her to bring them past the wall. She did so
carefully, finding a tiny crack and slipping through, pulling
Gryffon’s essence along behind her. She felt the shock of the
memories hitting him, it took a moment for his presence to reorient
itself. Once it did, she waited while he shifted through them all
to find what they were looking for. As she had promised him, she
could not actually see any of his memories herself, but she could
tell when he found it.

His elation was clear, and she quickly led
the way back out, not wanting to spend any more time in the roiling
memories for fear that they would become caught up in them. She
broke contact with him and opened her eyes, peering anxiously
across the connection. He took substantially longer to come back to
reality, giving her a moment’s worry. She bit her lip, waiting.

Finally, he cracked them open, looking as
though he were opening for the first time in the morning, squinting
and blinking in the light and wiping them with the palms of his
hands.

“Did you find it?” she asked excitedly,
knowing already from his emotions that he had, but wanting to hear
it out loud.

“I did,” he nodded, “and I think that you
might be able to adapt it to your needs. But…” he paused, looking
thoughtful.

“What?” she asked impatiently.

“There is the problem of working with the
chaotic magic. You could cleanse the area as you have been doing,
but this would only allow a small area of magic to be diverted to
the spell, and it leaves open the possibility of reverting back to
its natural course if, say, the energies around it shifted enough
to bring the area with it.”

“Is there another option?”

“I think so,” he said slowly, processing the
information. “I think you would have to alter your cleansing method
so that you actually create the rivers of power over large areas,
essentially taming the chaos for your needs.”

“We can do that?” she asked doubtfully. Even
just the small cleansing had been difficult. Would they really be
able to tame the wild magic to their own purposes?