The Farthest Gate (The White Rose Book 1) (18 page)

He nodded curtly and pulled away as if any sympathy might break him.  “Let us find this wall quickly so we can move on to shelter against the coming night.  The shadows are growing longer than I like, and danger will not be far behind.”

I looked at the sky.  Clouds gathered, bellies red with the light of the declining sun.  There would be rain by morning with an overcast sky for the next day.  I wondered if, under such conditions, the Dar’kyn might plague the day time too.  I would have asked Amberyn, but he had wandered off along the foot of the rocky bluff.  I followed, picking out my footing with care.  I did not need to turn an ankle at this point in my quest.

We searched to the left for a while, then headed back to study the right embankment. 
This appeared to be a fool’s quest after all ... until we came to bushes wound with honeysuckle.  They covered a dark patch of rock, perfuming the wind.  A cold chill went down my spine.  I sensed ancient death and stopped.

“Amberyn...”

“What is it?” he asked.

My eyes went through the bushes to the shadow beyond.  “A presence, nearly as old as time itself, waiting…”  I knew I was right, but did not understand the waking faculty in me that brought this knowledge.  I hugged myself, more afraid than I had ever been with rapier in hand against a foe.

The elf followed my gaze.  “In there?  You are certain?”

“Perhaps it is only a passing fancy
, or maybe being Death’s granddaughter brings more than pain.  All I know is, I feel a presence that fills my heart with fearful expectation.”

Amberyn forced a grin, and drew his blade.  “Well, then, let us see if you have turned up anything more than a shallow
cave.  Wait here for my call.”

I nodded, but as he waded into
brush and vines, I followed.  I could not let him face danger alone—I was no elf.

I pushed through
, into a pocket of gloom.  Directly in front of me lay the rough maw of a cave, its entrance choked by a harder shadow.  I paused as a shiver went through my spirit.

A
blue light flared within the cave, which brought a tunnel into view, highlighting the sharp planes of the elf’s thin face.  He managed fifteen feet before being brought up short by a wall of masonry mortared with moss.  A chiseled seal occupied the center of a keystone.  His hand went to the seal, not quite touching it.  Was he hesitant, afraid?

He looked back at me with an awed stare.  “You were right.  This is old … very old.”

I nodded distractedly, my eyes probing the chamber for the presence I still sensed.  It had pulled back, but not completely.  Uneasy, I looked at the seal; a circle with stylized rays fringing it.  Inside the circle, atop a long box, two angels knelt to face each other, wings swept forward, touching.  Lower on the wall, gilded elf runes conveyed a message I could not read.

“You do not know the significance of what
lies here,” Amberyn said.

“I will when you tell me.”  I did not like the quiver of apprehension in my voice.  

Purpose enflamed his stare.  “We will stay here tonight and work on taking down this wall.  It should be safe; the spirit of this place is known to my people.  That
she
calls to you…” His voice faded in wonder.

I hugged myself.  “Who
is
she
?”

“I will make all clear, but first, we need to bring Phillippe and Ty’hrall in here.  The
Dar’kyn will be out soon.  I need to hide our tracks with utmost care.”

He stepped over to another wall where a small crystal was imbedded in the stone.  The ghost light followed his hand, alighting on the protrusion as he reached for it, kindling it to life.  As if interconnected, other crystal stems in the wall bloomed with cold blue light.  I was grateful for the cheering comfort, no matter how strangely delivered.

“Stay here,” Amberyn said.

“Alone?”  My voice piped shrilly.  Somehow, I did not think all the fear I felt was my own.

“I will not be long, lass,” the elf prince promised.  “This is the tomb of Ellyssia, our greatest warrior queen.  She respects courage.  Whatever you feel is a test from her.  You must meet this challenge ... alone.”  He hurried away.

I sat on a small boulder
, one of the few that broke the smooth expanse of floor, and riveted my eyes to the seal.  Ellyssia was in there, dead yet waiting … for me? 

My heart raced.  I put my hand over it and felt my locket.  I opened it and dropped my eyes to Phillippe’s picture.  The blue light made him seem strangely fey, as if I were seeing a stranger.  I closed the locket and held it in my closed fist.  I could not fail Phillippe more than I already
had.  I would not run from this test.

One by one, t
he crystals along the wall dimmed.  Several flickered out completely, a challenge to my resolve.  Wagging shadows with red eyes leaked from around the seal.  With an aching slowness, the wraiths rippled across the rough tunnel walls as if the air could not hold them.  One flat shadow flowed close to where I sat, as if to merge with my own shadow on the wall.  I wondered if my shadow were penetrated, would I feel it.  Such things seemed possible here.  Vastly unsettling, I closed my eyes.  I endured.

And
something dreadful did seem to brush me in passing.  A terrible coldness pierced. 

I
comforted myself with words of faith.  “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death … I shall fear no evil…”

Hah!  Who was I deceiving?  Terror
crushed my voice to a broken whisper.

“For Thou art with me…”

A woman’s voice released a single word into my mind. 
Run.

I opened my eyes wide.

Total darkness enclosed me, as if light were an impossible dream now faded.  Distant voices gibbered and echoed, then joined in a chorus of dark, cruel laughter.  The fused sound washed over me, a wave of trepidation, draining away resolve.  I slipped off the boulder, striking my knees painfully against the ground.  That small distraction helped, making me real to myself.  I answered the voice, lifting my head in futile defiance.  “No.  Strike me down if you must, but I will not leave!”

Only the ember red eyes of the shadows were visible, demonic fireflies that swam through the darkness in
synchronized pairs.  Moth wings sliced my arms and face with razor kisses.  I gasped from pain that lagged the cutting, like thunder trailing lightning. 

The voice came again. 
Flee, or you will surely die.

I flailed my voice to greater strength. 
“Thy rod and they staff, they comfort me.  Thou preparest a table before me…”

The seal on the wall caught fire, burning with green, spectral flames.  A woman’s head and shoulder pushed through the barrier.  She was the fire.  It clung to her translucent armor, rising up from deep within her icy core.  Her eyes locked onto my face with a promise of destruction that made me believe I had only moments to live.

I felt faintness hovering nearby as my pulse pounded, and had to swallow to get enough moisture to speak.  “I have no way to fight you,” I said, “and I am very afraid, but I will not run.  I need your help to save my son.  Please, if you ever knew anything of pity...”

Her face became a grinning skull—without mercy—as the rest of her body came out of the wall.

Cold dread and hatred flared in me as I was reminded of the specter that had lured Phillippe onto the ice.  Surely these spirits were not the same.  I could not believe a one-time queen of Avalon would leap worlds to destroy an innocent.  That belief anchored me against the threat I felt.

I
heard her steps advancing, a sudden proof of solidity.  Her laugh pealed, distant and inhuman.  The white metal sword in her hands drew my gaze.  She shifted her grip on the hilt so the point could be driven downward.

My gaze
dropped to the picture in my cupped hand.  I sighed my last words, but surprisingly, they were not for Phillippe, “Azrael, I will love you forever.”

The specter hesitated; startled by the name I uttered
, then came ever closer.  Unspoken words insinuated themselves in my guttering thoughts:
I am Kursa.  Remember...

My body was jarred.  Her sword pierced my chest, sliced through my heart, and stilled its frenzied beat with an agony that paled even the wonder of receiving her true name
as a dying gift.  I collapsed, my hand an iron claw around my locket, refusing to release its burden.

9. HUNTING PARTY

Darkness filled my eyes.  My heart scarcely seemed to beat
—frozen and numb like ice in my chest.  The rock under me was hard.  A blanket had been tossed over me and a saddle served as a pillow.  Great amazement at being alive burst across my mind, as my lungs drew slow, aching breaths.  I had thought myself slain.  Living was a surprise.

The air stirred and I heard the whisper of cloth.

“Amberyn?” the word left my lips, a frail fluttery thing that struggled to rise.

“I am here, White Rose.”

“My son?”

“Here as well, along with Ty’hrall.  Both have just had a trip to nature’s privy.”

I tried to sit up, but a hand caught my shoulder and pushed me back.  The elf’s eyes had to be a lot better than mine to see me moving.

“Keep still,” he said.  “All is well, but we must wait here ‘til morning. 
The trees are whispering of Dar’kyn skulking through the night, heading this way.  Sleep if you can.”

I heard him, but such danger seemed a little thing to me at that moment. 
“I failed.  I could not keep fear from my heart … so she struck me down.”

Amberyn stretched out beside me to share body heat.  An herbal scent emanated from him that I could not place.
  Apple ... mint...?

You did not fail completely,” he said. 

“What do you mean?”  Was he only being kind?

“I would show you what now lies by the wall, under the seal, but I do not want to risk a light.  Ellyssia left you a present.”

“She did?  What?”  I remembered a word that appeared in my thoughts as she struck me down.  Her true name?  Was that her gift as well?

“A hunter’s horn and dueling dagger,” Amberyn said.  “
You would have done better with
Firestorm
, the sword of legend—”

I smiled wryly.  “Oh, she gave me that as well, point first.  I did not expect to awaken ever again.”

“Truly?  You have no mark upon you.”

Yes, he could definitely see in this darkness.  My hand crept to my heart, feeling for injury.  There was none.  My fingers searched for other wounds and felt only smoothness along my arm.  The cuts made by the red-eyed shadows were gone.  I could well believe it all a nightmare if not for the lingering cold
sunk deep in my chest.  I doubted my heart would ever be warm again.

             
I continued the discussion to distract myself from discomfort.  “I do not understand how I was struck down, but left without a wound.”

“
In a time before my people came to Avalon, Ellyssia’s armor and sword were lightened with an infusion of grace after being forged in the fire of a new-born star.  No darkness can withstand her weapon’s touch.”  Amberyn paused.  “But your heart seeks the Light, so her mystic blade left no lasting wound.”

I pried at his comment
s.  “I thought the elves had always been here.”

“No, we are the thrice-born.”  His voice assumed a rich formality, as if he were intoning an often repeated tale.  “When the stars were young, we walked their paths.  Then war came to heaven.  Most celestials chose on
e side or another, darkness or Light, but there were some that would not lift sword in that conflict.  At the end of the great battle, the uncommitted were stripped of immortality, made male and female, and cast to Avalon.”

I gasped at his revelation.  “Elves were once angels?”

“Aye, lass, first angels, then little different from humans.  Made mortal, we could not bear to age and lose our beauty.  We could not bear to be swallowed by darkness in the cold embrace of the grave.”

“So what did you do?” my voice was the thinnest whisper.  I was a child
, hearing a tale of adventure, spell-bound by his words. 

He laughed without mirth. 
“Why, we cheated Death.  We became elves, forging a covenant with the forest, rooting our souls to it.  Thereafter, as we died, our spirits were reborn in the trees until the forest became far more than ever intended.  That is why an elf’s death is called the fourth birth.”