The Balance of Power (Godsland Series: Books Four, Five, and Six) (15 page)

Trinda was crying now, and with every step, she urged them to hurry. She knew as well as Sinjin that they would not make it to the city ahead. It was a goal beyond their grasp. Once, he'd tried to imagine what would happen if they did reach the city, but it had become a nightmare, and he tried to keep his mind within the confines of the current problem. To each side stood a possible route of escape, but Sinjin did not know what awaited them in the darkness below. All of them had seen movement down there, and he didn't think crabs were the only things living within the darkness. For a moment Sinjin wondered how anything could live in here at all. Then a fading rumble of thunder reminded them of the rain.

The sound of demons running, their crude armor creaking and their booted feet striking the stones, was the only warning they had that the attack had begun. Sinjin had somehow expected them to slowly catch up, but the demons had been keeping a burst of speed in reserve, and now they rushed forward. Acting on instinct, Sinjin reached out to the energy around him, energy that he knew existed and that his parents could access. He, too, should be able to access it, he presumed. Trying to remember to breathe, he reached out with his fingers and tried to grab on to it with his mind, as his mother had always said. It had been a long time since he had tried to access Istra's powers, but never had he tried when his life depended on it. That was how his mother had come into her powers, and perhaps that was what it would take for his abilities to manifest. Given his encounter with the assassins, it seemed unlikely, but there was nothing else he could do but try.

Crying out and thrusting his arms forward, Sinjin released the accumulated charge. A small spark leaped between his outstretched fingers, and there was a light crackling sound, but his efforts yielded no other effect.

Trinda just stared at him and said nothing.

His face flushed and his pride deeply bruised, Sinjin turned to her. "Is there anything you can do? I'm sorry. I failed."

"You tried," Trinda said with a shrug. "I have a little more now. I'll try too."

Before Sinjin or Brother Vaughn could say another word, Trinda cupped the herald globe, and it grew steadily brighter until it shone like a star, and she threw it as hard and as far as she could. The herald globe sailed high, higher than a girl of Trinda's size should have been able to throw, and Sinjin understood that Trinda's powers continued to manifest, even if his own did not.

Shielding his eyes, Sinjin supposed it would buy them a moment when the demons would be blinded, but without a light to guide them, he wasn't certain how much good it would do them. He didn't have to think about it long. The herald globe ended its flight, and even from a distance, it seemed as if the globe exploded before it ever struck the glossy black stone. A massive burst of energy radiated from it, leveling the demons and sending a wash of angry air over Sinjin, Trinda, and Brother Vaughn.

"By the gods," Brother Vaughn said. "What did you just do?" Then he seemed to recall himself. "Never you mind that question, dear. You saved us. That's what you did." Still, when Brother Vaughn found a still-slightly glowing and perfectly preserved herald globe at the center of an area where even much of the black rock had been blasted away, he retrieved it with cautious awe. "Come. We must leave this place. Quickly."

Chapter 13

The true measure of a person can be seen in the way they treat those less powerful than themselves.

--The Pauper King

* * *

For Sinjin, reaching the end of the stone bridge was like waking from a bad dream only to find himself in a new nightmare. More howls came from behind, and he grunted with exertion as he did his best to give Brother Vaughn a boost. His strength was fading, and Brother Vaughn had to find what toeholds he could to complete the climb. Trinda was much easier to lift, and Brother Vaughn was there to reach down and grab her, but that left Sinjin standing alone at the bottom of a nearly shear face. Down low, the face was smoother and devoid of toeholds. Brother Vaughn took off his outer robe and held it down to Sinjin. With a running start, Sinjin jumped without a great deal of confidence, but fear and adrenaline brought him close to success. With his second jump, he got a grip on the robe. The sound of tearing cloth was nearly as frightening as the sight of Brother Vaughn nearly going over the edge, but the robe held and Brother Vaughn regained his balance.

Even with the robe to hold on to, it was a difficult climb. When Sinjin finally reached the top, he slid down into a heaving and quivering mass.

"I'd let you rest, m'boy, but we've got to go," Brother Vaughn said, and Trinda showed her agreement by pulling on Sinjin's shirt, her eyes pleading.

Sinjin knew they were right; he could hear more demons coming, and he knew they needed to move, but he could not get his body to respond. He felt Brother Vaughn grab his jacket between the shoulders, and he tried to stand, but he leaned heavily on the already abused monk. Trinda eyed them both with doubt, as if she expected them to collapse at any moment. Sinjin did his best to prove her wrong and, after a few minutes, was able to walk on his own, though he and Brother Vaughn stayed side by side in case either needed help. Trinda walked ahead of them without complaint. The herald globe glowed brightly, as if it had been charged in the sunlight, though not as brightly as it had been when Trinda had fed it her energy.

"Did you give it more?" Sinjin asked Trinda when his strength began to return.

"A little." She shrugged.

"And was it easy to give it just a little and not everything you had?" Sinjin asked, and Brother Vaughn looked up, awaiting her answer.

Trinda just gave him an annoyed look. "I didn't have very much." Her look made it clear she wanted no more questions about that.

Sinjin sighed and wondered if he would ever understand the ways of those with power. It seemed so foreign to him, even though he was part of the most powerful family on Godsland. He'd seen things no one else had, yet he could explain none of it, could feel none of it, and that terrified him. It was a fear he'd carried most of his life, and these days seemed no more likely to bring an answer or solace.

The sights around him would have been met with awe under any other circumstances, but Sinjin barely noticed the carvings and reliefs or the repeating scrollwork along the walls of the gracefully arching halls. Feeling like prey chased into someone else's territory, Sinjin forced himself to move faster, and he found himself offering support to Brother Vaughn, not knowing where he had found the strength.

Walking in a daze, he almost didn't notice the change. It had been gradual, but the light continued to grow until they no longer needed the herald globe to light their way. Brother Vaughn looked as if he wanted the globe back from Trinda, but she put it in the pocket of her dress, and the elder monk said nothing. Hues of amber cast a warm glow on the otherwise cold stone, and Sinjin felt a weight lift from his soul. Even though he could not access Istra's power, he missed the warm radiance of sunlight and, he supposed, the light of the comets as well. His mother always said that the comets were the most beautiful things she had ever seen and that they had not been in the sky when she was young, but for Sinjin, the comets had always been there. Even though there were more than when he was younger, he couldn’t imagine a time without them. They were so commonplace to him, they did not seem so beautiful. Also detracting from their majesty in his eyes was that they seemed more like the force that divided him from his family and had caused most of the bad things that had happened to his mother. If not for Istra's powers, would the Zjhon have ever invaded his homeland?

The beauty of what lay ahead tore Sinjin from his melancholy thoughts. First came the sound of moving water over the rush of a distant fall, then the smell of lush grasses and apple blossoms. Before them waited an underground world that was full of life and wonder. White birds glided in the air over trees that were far wider than they were tall. Though the mighty cavern could have held greatoaks, it seemed most of the vegetation remained closer to the ground. Looking up, Sinjin's breath caught in his chest. A latticework of giant amber crystals formed a vaulted ceiling for the chamber, and these crystals acted as lenses, gathering and intensifying the light from above.

A herd of small deer gathered near a shallow pool for a drink. At first they looked like fauns to Sinjin, so slight were their forms, but several bore small but fully developed racks of antlers. Sinjin wondered what other strange creatures roamed the caverns and how they had come to be there. Then he looked at the waterfall, which cast rainbows about the cavern, and he knew that the river would bring life, though he still wondered about the deer and birds and whatever else might be alive in this place. The land and trees appeared almost manicured. Shadows occasionally moved within the trees. Sinjin did not know if it was merely his imagination, but as they moved closer to the water, his anxiety grew. Still the chance to get a drink of cool, clean water was too good to resist. Mostly ripe apples waited on a nearby tree, and Sinjin picked three, feeling like a thief. As he did, he noticed no apples on the ground nor stray leaves or sticks.

Trinda eyed the apple Sinjin handed her with suspicion and waited for Sinjin to take a few bites of his before she ate it. He couldn't blame her. There was something curious about trees growing inside of a mountain. He wasn’t sure what apples grown in such conditions would be like, yet they tasted delicious. When they had finished the apples, Sinjin wondered what to do with the core. Brother Vaughn looked to be having a similar quandary, but Trinda just finished off her apple and threw the core on the grass. Sinjin and Brother Vaughn eyed it as if they might be punished for their disrespect of this place.

Trinda just put a hand on her hip. "Don't be silly. The deer will eat it."

* * *

Not knowing how long she'd slept, Catrin felt thick and groggy when she woke. The cries of gulls filled the air as they feasted in the shallows during low tide. Her skin felt coated in salt, and her hair lay in ropelike clumps. Black sand clung to her leathers and her exposed skin, and she wiped it away, trying to clear the fog from her sleep-addled mind. The sight of the endless horizon brought fear and anxiety, as if she were the only person left on Godsland. Looking around for Kyrien, she found nothing but empty beaches and bare fields of black stone. If not for the gulls, she would have been truly alone.

Tears gathered in her eyes as she felt the guilt of leaving her son and her husband and all of her people to their fates. Though she knew Prios would protect Sinjin and that Chase and Morif would do their best to protect them, she knew what was to come; she'd seen it in visions she prayed would never come to pass. Standing on a lump of rock in the middle of an ocean, she could not have felt more useless. Forcing her tears aside, she climbed to the highest point of the dormant volcano, the only sign of volcanic activity the still glowing gashes in the field of stone and an occasional burst of steam from the far shore. Standing at the edge of the crater, she scanned the horizon and still saw nothing. Within the crater itself, grasses grew, and Catrin was surprised to find berries and leafy greens growing among porous rock.

While she ate, Catrin began to sense the land pulsing with life beneath her feet, and in some ways, she felt closer to the land than she ever had before. Similar to the feeling she had when standing in the Grove of the Elders, it was as if she could reach into Godsland itself and draw upon its power. She let the land guide her to a place near the center of the crater, a place where moss carpeted rounded stones. Here she rested. Composed and calmed, she moved with the pulse of the land, swaying and breathing deeply.

Using the technique Benjin had once taught her, Catrin focused on her center, which rested within the Grove of the Elders as it existed in her memory: a mighty field of black stone surrounded by twenty-one towering greatoaks. At the very center stood the Staff of Life, still blooming in the place where Catrin had planted it more than a decade before. At no time in history had the grove ever looked exactly as Catrin pictured it, at least not all at one time, but Catrin remembered this place the way she wanted it to be: a place of ancient power untouched by the mistakes of a young girl. Old guilt shrouded her heart despite the fact that she had done everything she could to rebuild the grove. Now only time would return it to its previous glory. The crater reminded her a bit of the grove in the way that the power of the land seemed more acute here. It also reminded her that the Staff of Life rested in lands now occupied by dark forces.

Anxiety poured unbidden from the depths of her soul, fears so dark and personal that she could not face them. In her most terrifying visions, she'd seen herself become the face of death, a wielder of such weapons that all would cower before her, and she had fought to become something else ever since. When making the herald globes, she'd been a creator, yet it seemed as if her true destiny was to be the destroyer. Perhaps in that the old prophecies had been right. Perhaps she had no choice but to become an avatar of death.

Is a sword only used to kill?

The thought echoed from Catrin's subconscious, distant and faint but nonetheless poignant. Catrin had used that very argument to convince Strom to make her a weapon: the sword that lay in her lap, gleaming in the preternatural light of Catrin's meditation. It was a tool--a deadly and dangerous tool. It terrified her. Always she had questioned her right to end the life of another, always she wondered what made her life more valuable than the other’s, and always she felt unworthy of those who had died so she could live.

Your work is not yet done.

That thought came from a memory of the druid Barabas and his farewell to her. He'd given his life to save hers, and his parting words frightened her more than anything else. She had yet to earn that sacrifice. Her greatest challenges lay before her, which meant there was the chance she would fail, that she would dishonor those who had made the greatest sacrifice. Fear that she would fail all those who were counting on her came to the fore and threatened to smother her, but Catrin was no longer a little girl, and she would not let fear rule her. Something had happened to her when she became a mother; her own well-being had become somehow secondary to the needs of Sinjin, and as long as he lived, she would have everything she needed to overcome her fear.

Thoughts of Sinjin drew Catrin out of the grove, and her consciousness soared. In the past she had astrally traveled and had visions, but what happened next seemed more like a mixture of the two. Unlike past visions, she could exert control over where she was, but unlike astral travel, she felt uncertain of
when
she was. Something about what she saw made it seem unreal. It rippled and shifted as in dreams, and her thoughts influenced all that she saw. Her heart was drawn to the Godfist, and she soared over the seas faster than the swiftest bird. The Godfist rushed toward her, accompanied by a heavy feeling in Catrin's chest. Smoke rose over parts of the island--her home--and armies of demons and giants clogged the valleys, some even spilling out into the Arghast Desert. Black ships filled the harbors, and the entrances to Dragonhold were infected with darkness. To the south, everything burned; when she soared over the landscape, nothing moved. Then she saw them: feral dragons sunning themselves along a ridgeline, looking almost serene. Catrin knew better.

Desperate need pulled her back to Dragonhold, deep into the stone. There she felt a pulse of life, and it spoke to her, "Mother! Please help!"

Every ounce of Catrin's energy became focused on finding Sinjin and helping him. Nothing mattered more than being there when he needed her most, yet she could not prevent the present from pulling her back, from making her experience the now. When Catrin's eyes opened, she had no idea how long she'd been gone, but the sun was already dipping into the water.

A sudden, pounding thought from Kyrien forced all else aside.

Prepare yourself!

What Catrin saw on the horizon shocked her to her core, something she'd never thought to see, at least not from this vantage point: a flying ship! And it was not just any ship. Like a lover come home after far too long, Catrin recognized the
Slippery Eel,
her normally submerged battering ram now cutting the wind. This alone was enough to rock Catrin back on her heels, but the air around the
Eel
was filled with dragons, lightning, and fire. To add to her horror, the backs of the ferals bore riders who reeked of power. It was these men who cast lightning and fire at will.

Kyrien crashed into ferals, his saddle no longer on his back. He was not alone, though, and Catrin nearly shouted in triumph when she saw the other regent dragons coming to Kyrien's aid. She'd not seen another regent dragon since her flight from the Firstland many years before, but their beauty was unmistakable, even from afar. The ferals had their own fierce splendor, but the regents nearly glowed and shifted colors in the changing light.