Lord of the White Hell book Two lotwh-2 (31 page)

Wake up! You are in danger andyour friend is dying!

Kiram's eyes shot open. Predawn light and long blue shadows filled the small glade. Alizadeh stood a few feet in front of him beneath a tall elm tree. A cold wind rustled through the branches and Alizadeh's form flickered and shuddered and for an instant Kiram glimpsed black crows' wings and glassy eyes staring at him from the hollows of Alizadeh's body.

I cannot hide you from the shadow curse much longer. You must be quick. Wake the others.

Kiram staggered to his feet. He shook Nestor awake and then Javier, but Elezar only groaned. His body felt like ice.

"Who is that?" Nestor stared at Alizadeh and held his blanket close as if he'd been found naked. "How did he find us?"

"It's all right, Nestor. He's my teacher." Javier stepped closer to Alizadeh and held up his hand in a Bahiim gesture of welcome that Alizadeh returned.

The shadow curse is hunting you and you are too far from the Circle of Red Oaks for me to hide your presence any longer. Alizadeh's voice carried over them like a whispering breeze.

Still lying in his saddle blanket, Elezar opened his eyes but didn't seem to see Kiram, much less Alizadeh. He closed his eyes again and didn't respond as Kiram shook him harder.

Ride the Old Road, Alizadeh told Javier. The blessed willows will know the shajdi's light and protect your path to the foot of Zancoda. Butyou must be fast. Death is already among you.

Alizadeh suddenly turned his head, and again Kiram caught the flash of crow's feathers and sharp beaks. Alizadeh looked straight at Elezar.

As if pulled by an invisible force Elezar's eyes opened and he lifted his head to face Alizadeh.

If you throw away your life, boy, then I will lay claim to it. Your strength is needed now. Rise and live!

Alizadeh shuddered and then his body broke apart as if it were no more than a play of light upon the elm leaves. Hundreds of black crows rose from the surrounding trees. They circled and then plunged down upon Elezar. Kiram fell back as a powerful wind pushed him aside. Nestor cried out in horror and stumbled to his feet. Only Javier remained still and calm.

The crows struck Elezar like shadows, falling across his body without leaving a mark. Yet with each impact Elezar gasped in a breath and shook. Color rose in his cheeks and light shone in his gaze. Then the crows were gone and the entire forest seemed strangely quiet.

Elezar sat up, breathing fast, his face sweating and flushed.

"You should have told me you were injured!" Javier frowned at Elezar.

"You had enough to worry about." Elezar looked away.

"Your death wouldn't exactly take a load off my mind, Elezar," Javier snapped.

Elezar's jaw worked and he sighed heavily. "I'm sorry. I'll be more careful next time."

Kiram supposed that was the best any of them could hope for but Nestor looked deeply hurt. Despite Elezar's embarrassed expression Nestor threw his arms around his older brother, hugging him and then bursting into tears.

"Nestor." Elezar's face flushed deeper red but his voice went soft. "Nestor, I won't do it again, all right. I promise. I'm fine. Nestor, you have to let me get up."

Nestor drew back and wiped his face with his dirty shirtsleeve. "You better not die."

"Same goes for you," Elezar returned. Kiram didn't think he'd ever seen Elezar look so touched or so self-conscious all at once.

"All right. Now that we're all agreed that staying alive is the course we want to follow," Javier interrupted, "we need to get moving. There is something worse than the bishop's men after us now. If it catches us I'm not sure that any of us will survive."

"What do you mean?" Elezar asked. "What is it?"

"The Tornesal curse." Javier rolled up his saddle blanket and quickly buckled his sword belt around his waist. He didn't offer any further explanation but both Nestor and Elezar seemed to catch his urgency.

They gathered their gear and saddled the horses. Kiram's mouth tasted like dirt and his hair was full of fallen leaves and moss. His body ached and the morning cold numbed his fingers. But despite clumsy discomfort, the memory of the shadow curse hunting him sped his movements.

"The Tornesal curse?" Nestor fumbled with his stirrup and then climbed into his saddle.

Javier gave him a curt nod but his attention was on the surrounding trees. He stroked Lunaluz's neck absently.

"It's taken possession of Fedeles and we have to get to the academy if we're going to stop it and save him," Kiram explained.

"And that man just now, was he a ghost? Or some kind of forest spirit?" Nestor asked. "What does he teach you?"

Javier sprang up into his saddle. "He's a Bahiim, a Haldiim holy man. He's been training me since I converted."

Nestor gaped at Javier. "You converted?"

"I knew something was going on," Elezar grumbled. "You never used to hang around in trees day and night."

Kiram silently mounted his own horse.

"So, it was Bahiim magic that saved Elezar just now, wasn't it?" Nestor asked.

Javier nodded and whatever gripe Elezar might have voiced against Javier's conversion went unspoken.

"Can you do that?" Nestor asked Javier. "I mean, turn into birds or bring someone back to life?"

"No." Javier shook his head. "Magic like that takes years of practice and requires a kind of self control that I haven't mastered."

"But Kiram's been part of the Haldiim religion all his life. I bet he knows all kinds of magic." Nestor looked excited and Kiram realized that Nestor was as delighted by Bahiim magic as he'd been with the idea of Mirogoths who could transform themselves into wolves.

"No such luck," Kiram informed Nestor. "I know less about it than Javier does."

A cold chill passed over them and suddenly the entire forest around them seemed darker. Elezar sat up straight in his saddle and Nestor gasped. Birds flew from the surrounding trees. Wild hares and squirrels fled as if racing to escape a fire.

"What was that?" Elezar demanded.

"The shadow curse. We don't have time to talk. We have to find the Old Road. Now." Javier urged Lunaluz ahead.

They followed Javier through the forest as he searched among stands of gnarled trees and around moss covered outcroppings of stone. Kiram had no idea what Javier was looking for and apparently Javier didn't either. When Nestor asked, Javier simply told him that he'd know when he found it.

The shadows around them deepened and every twig that cracked beneath the horses' hooves echoed through the eerie quiet of the seemingly empty forest. Kiram tried to ignore the sharp cramps cutting into his belly, but when Nestor groaned and gripped his gut, Kiram realized that he wasn't the only one feeling the shadow curse's presence. Even the horses seemed agitated and uncomfortable. Kiram murmured soothing words to his mount while Javier turned Lunaluz back and forth through the forest.

Then at the edge of a stream, Javier stopped his restless search. Two huge willows stood on either side of the mossy stream bank.

"Here." Javier urged Lunaluz down into the shallow waters. "Come quickly and stay close to me."

The huge willows bowed over the stream, their long branches dangling into the waters and obscuring the view ahead.

Javier whispered words that Kiram only half understood: the names of ancient deities and invocations of arcane guardians. An eerie cool wind whipped through the willow branches. They swayed and trembled like anxious fingers. Javier raised his arms and flexed his hands as if he were wrenching some invisible cord asunder. As Javier jerked his arms apart, a loud crack sounded and the ground trembled. All the horses except Lunaluz pranced nervously. Kiram soothed Verano as best he could.

"This path is mine to take. I will not be barred from it!" Javier shouted. His tone alone was enough to make Nestor startle. Elezar scanned the surrounding woods as if expecting an attack.

White flames gushed from Javier's hands and leaped into the branches of the willow trees. But like the trees in the Circle of Red Oaks they did not burn but instead lit up like stained glass in sunlight. A second shudder passed through the ground beneath them and the waters flowing over the stream bed parted to reveal a path of white stones etched with Bahiim symbols.

Overhead the willow branches curled back like gleaming glass curtains, revealing a delicate white archway and the flat darkness within it. Kiram knew that there should be more of the streambed on the other side, not this deep blackness.

A dry, bitter breeze crept from the archway and Kiram shuddered as it brushed over his face. He remembered the smell of the poison Rafie had made and the feeling of his grandmother's dead hand in his own. Beneath him, Verano shivered.

White flames spread over Javier's body as he lowered his arms and took up his reins. Then he urged Lunaluz ahead and they plunged into the darkness of the archway.

Without a word, Kiram, Elezar and Nestor followed him.

D
arkness pervaded. If a sky hung above him or ground stretched beneath him, Kiram could not see it. He felt Verano moving under him, but he couldn't hear the horse's hooves strike ground. Javier and Lunaluz blazed ahead of him and he chased that only source of light. Beside him Elezar and Nestor were dim figures, illuminated only by the white blaze Javier cast across them.

They rode ceaselessly but their surroundings never seemed to change. Kiram felt his legs going numb, but he didn't dare to slow for fear of losing sight of Javier. The ache of hunger ground at his belly and then dulled. Kiram clung to his reins, unsure how many hours had passed or even if they had stretched into days. His eyes burned and strange images flickered at the corners of his vision.

"Elezar," Nestor called suddenly. He was smiling into the darkness. "Look, it's Lady-dog! I think she's hurt. Here, girl!"

"Lady-dog is dead, Nestor." Elezar's gaze didn't leave Javier. "This place is full of devils. Don't be tricked."

But when Kiram glanced after a movement to his left, he could swear he saw his grandmother beckoning to him through the darkness. His heart ached at the thought of her all alone in this desolate place. He couldn't just leave her.

Suddenly a strong hand caught his reins and jerked Kiram back into the faint light. Kiram looked up to see Elezar leaning from his own mount.

"Don't look at them, damn it!" Elezar snarled.

Kiram's heart raced at the thought of what he'd nearly done. If he'd lost Javier's light he would never have found his way out of this place.

Elezar straightened and snapped his attention back onto Javier. Nestor rode close beside Elezar, looking frantic.

"Where are we?" Nestor asked.

"I think this is the Sorrowland," Elezar said.

Nestor looked suddenly very frightened and lifted one hand as if shielding himself from the view of the surrounding blackness.

"What's the Sorrowland?" Kiram asked.

Elezar glanced only briefly to Kiram. "The dead must cross the Sorrowland to reach heaven. It's filled with the regrets and losses of a lifetime. If they lure you into the darkness, your soul is lost for eternity."

Kiram frowned at the answer. He only half believed in much of his own religion, and he certainly didn't hold with any Cadeleonian beliefs. Still, Kiram couldn't deny that Elezar seemed to be right.

Memories of his grandmother, the warmth and comfort she had always offered him, haunted Kiram. He wished, not for the first time, that he'd been able to tell her how much he loved her before she'd died. He thought he could hear her crying but didn't dare to look out into the darkness again. He concentrated on Javier's straight back, desperately trying to ignore the ghostly images flickering at the edges of his vision.

Kiram pondered how it was possible that Elezar so easily maintained his focus on Javier. But then Kiram wondered if Javier was the single greatest loss in Elezar's life. Nothing in the surrounding darkness could inspire more desire or regret. Nothing else could feel as lost to him.

As for what Javier himself saw, Kiram had no idea. He prayed that is was nothing, that the light of the shajdi protected him, because of all of them he had known the most grief and suffered the deepest losses.

But Javier didn't waver from his path. He never slowed or called out into the surrounding black. He rode and they followed. And it seemed that their constant chase would never end. Kiram's entire body hurt from the pounding rhythm of riding. He didn't know how the horses could keep moving or how he could remain awake. Sometimes it seemed like the light radiating from Javier held them all in one endless motion and only its constancy kept them all from plunging into complete oblivion.

Then suddenly a dusky sky broke overhead and the horses' hooves clattered against cobblestones. Kiram blinked at the evening stars and the moon as if he were looking at a blazing sun. He'd grown so used to pitch blackness that twilight seemed bright, almost luminous.

Glancing again to the moon, Kiram realized that it was now full, which meant that nearly three days had passed since they had entered the archway. Three days of riding without food, water or rest. He had no idea how they had done it or even how far they had come.

Slowly, he picked out the details of their surroundings. Apple trees lined the winding road. Low, stone walls divided open fields where young stalks of sunflowers stood among rows of spring wheat. Before them the road wound up to the dark fortress of the Sagrada Academy.

"Thank God!" Nestor cried. His voice sounded dry and cracked.

"I don't think God had much to do with it," Elezar told Nestor.

The light of the moon seemed to burn away Javier's dark form. Kiram studied his hunched back. He swayed in his saddle with his head bowed low and the reins hanging limply from his hands. Suddenly Kiram realized that he was about to fall.

Kiram spurred Verano ahead and caught Javier before he toppled from Lunaluz's back. He reeked of sweat, smoke and dry blood. The sharp angles of his body seemed terribly pronounced as if he'd been starved for weeks. His dark eyes looked hollow and haunted.

"Kiram?" Javier's voice came out in a rasp.

"I'm here," Kiram assured him.

Javier grasped his hand with silent desperation. He said nothing but bowed his head against Kiram's shoulder and held him as if he could not bear to let go. Kiram couldn't imagine what visions Javier had endured in the Sorrowland. He could only return Javier's embrace with all his strength and try not to think of what Nestor or Elezar made of their display. He held Javier and forgot everything else.

Then Lunaluz gave an exasperated snort and Javier drew back from Kiram.

"Apparently we're boring my horse." Javier patted the stallion's muscular neck. Then he sighed and turned his gaze to the dark silhouette of the Sagrada Academy. "Well, I suppose there's still much to be done."

He straightened in his saddle, composure lending him an air of command despite his obvious exhaustion. Then he turned to address Elezar and Nestor. "Are you still with me?"

Elezar nodded his assent. Nestor gaped for a moment but then he too agreed.

When they reached the academy grounds they found them mostly deserted. One groom greeted them at the stable but didn't rouse himself when Javier assured him that they could stable their own horses. However, as they left the stables Kiram noticed blue jays gathering in the surrounding trees and circling the academy roofs.

"That's odd," Nestor commented as he peered up at the birds.

"What are they looking for?" Elezar asked.

"Us." Javier sped up his pace.

"Are they your teacher's birds?" Nestor asked hopefully.

"No, they belong to our enemy," Kiram replied. The surrounding trees looked like they had bloomed with thousands of brilliant blue bodies.

"I think we might be in trouble," Kiram said. They were still yards from the dormitory and too far from the stables to retreat there for shelter.

Then the jays dived them.

"Run!" Javier shouted and they all bolted for the dormitory. Talons clawed at their scalps and exposed arms. Hard beaks slashed and stabbed. Blood dribbled into Kiram's eyes as a jay lacerated his brow. Kiram struck back at the small bodies but there were so many. For each one that he knocked away another swept down.

In the flurry of wings and beaks, Elezar swore and Nestor howled. Javier snarled a low grating word and flames gushed up to engulf the birds soaring above them. The jays shrieked and burning bodies fell from the air, but moments later more took flight, pursuing Kiram, Elezar, Javier and Nestor as they raced to the doors of the dormitory.

Inside, Elezar barred the doors and continued to swear at the jays under his breath. Blood trickled from a cut across his nose and his hands were a mass of scratches. Nestor pressed his hand against a gash in his cheek. His gold spectacles had been torn away and his calf was bleeding.

Javier leaned against a wall, breathing hard. He too bore a multitude of small scrapes and cuts but they didn't worry Kiram as much as Javier's pure exhaustion. Javier closed his eyes and swayed on his feet, seeming to be on the edge of collapse, but he caught himself.

He needed to sleep. Kiram wondered how well the wards up in their old tower room would protect Javier. Could he afford to rest up there for a few hours?

"We need to get Kiram to the infirmary," Javier said. Both Elezar and Nestor glanced to Kiram in alarm.

"I need to get to the mechanical cure that Scholar Donamillo created. They aren't what we thought they were, but if I'm right we can still use them," Kiram said. Now even Javier regarded him curiously. "I'll tell you everything on the way there."

As they staggered and limped through the halls, Kiram explained what he'd discovered in Yassin's journal and Scholar Donamillo's diary. Both Nestor and Elezar were horrified. Javier looked desolate.

"Every time I took him to a treatment," Javier murmured, "I was killing him."

"You couldn't have known, Javier," Elezar said. "None of us knew."

"He's right," Kiram agreed. "You aren't to blame. You thought you were protecting him and you did everything you could to help him."

"But I wasn't helping him at all."

"Now we will," Kiram assured him. "Fedeles is still there, I'm sure. Donamillo hasn't won yet."

As they moved deeper into the building, they passed servants dressed in the Sagrada colors. All of the men stared at their bloody, filthy condition, but strangely said nothing.

"Birds!" Nestor announced to one man. "Bloody birds went mad and attacked us."

"We're just popping in to the infirmary to get cleaned up," Kiram added.

But Kiram could tell that the servant's attention wasn't really on him, Elezar or Nestor. It was Javier, whom all of the passing staff members watched with a kind of shocked apprehension.

Kiram suddenly wondered if word of the royal bishop's ruling against Javier had reached the academy. He suspected that it had and when one servant suddenly bolted away, Kiram felt sure that the man had gone to raise some alarm that the hell-branded duke had returned to their midst.

"How hard do you think it would be to barricade the infirmary?" Kiram asked.

Javier offered him a weary smile. "We do think alike, don't we?"

When they reached the infirmary, they found the lamps dimmed but still burning. Scholar Blasio sat beside a bed, while across the room Genimo stood polishing one of Scholar Dona- millo's mechanical cures. Genimo's eyes went wide at the sight of the four of them at the door and the polishing cloth dropped silently from his hand.

Donamillo lay on a bed, sunken and still as a corpse. Scholar Blasio stroked his older brother's waxy brow and whispered what sounded like a prayer over him. Only after smoothing the blankets that covered his brother did he look up and see them in the doorway.

"Dear God!" Blasio cried. "Sit down. Sit down all of you and let me see what I can do."

"We aren't here for medical attention, Scholar," Kiram told him. "We're here because you were right about what your brother wrote in his journal. We have to stop him."

A watery gleam came to the scholar's eyes and he glanced to where Donamillo's body lay on the infirmary bed.

"He's nearly gone," Blasio said softly. Then he looked to Kiram. "I've been nursing his body for weeks hoping that he would come back-that if he would just return to me, it would somehow undo what he has done to himself and to everyone else."

"What on earth are you all talking about?" Genimo demanded. "What happened to you?"

"You wouldn't believe it," Nestor told him.

Scholar Blasio cleaned and dressed their wounds and ordered the servants to bring them food and drink.

Nestor nearly fell asleep on his feet once his wounds had been tended and he'd eaten. Elezar guided him to one of the cots and tucked him in. When Javier dropped to another cot moments later, Kiram felt relieved. It had been almost painful to watch Javier struggling to stay awake. Now he sprawled across a cot, snoring quietly. Elezar sat, bleary-eyed, on a cot between Javier's and Nestor's. He maintained his vigil over the two of them for nearly an hour before he too succumbed.

In the meantime Kiram inspected Scholar Donamillo's mechanical cures and flipped between the two journals, taking notes.

"What do you think you're going to do?" Genimo asked. His tone was genial enough but there was something in his wording that bothered Kiram.

"What I can," Kiram responded.

"Why don't I have a look?" Genimo reached for Yassin's journal but Kiram pulled it back from him.

"Thanks, but it wouldn't do any good. They're both written in Haldiim," Kiram said quickly.

"Suit yourself." Genimo shrugged and stalked back to the medicine cabinets. He picked up a tattered book and flipped through the pages. But as Kiram checked the mechanical cures for the symbols and invocations he found in Yassin's journal, he felt Genimo watching him. The sensation made him uneasy and he considered writing his own notes in Haldiim.

But that would just make it more difficult for everyone else to help him reconstruct the mechanical cures. Besides, he might not like Genimo but that didn't make him a traitor.

Kiram had already made that mistake once, in assuming that just because he was off-putting and bigoted Holy Father Habalan had to be the man responsible for the shadow curse. All the while he'd been blind to Scholar Donamillo's machinations, simply because the two of them had shared tastes and ideas. He didn't want to think that he could have idolized a man who committed such cruelty and yet he had.

Even now, Kiram felt sick with awe as he took in the beauty and pure mechanical mastery of Scholar Donamillo's work. Every screw and incantation was precisely placed, perfectly crafted. The twelve iron ribs arched in magnificent geometry supporting 792 glass panels which interlocked to exactly align every curse and command that gave the mechanism its purpose. Even the wires of the harnesses were carefully braided and measured to exact lengths.

Kiram couldn't deny that the mechanical cure was a masterpiece and the thought both repulsed and frightened him. He needed to reverse what Donamillo had done as quickly as possible but the intricacy and perfection of the mechanical cure defied replication. New glass panels and iron ribs as perfect as these certainly couldn't be fabricated in a matter of weeks, much less a few days.