The Last Druid (21 page)

Lina could hardly
stand, her head dropping lower and lower as she panted hard.  Calla ran over to pick her up and hurried back across the narrow bridge.

“At least you’re not that heavy,” she remarked.

Oh…shut it
, Lina gasped with a faint growl.

Cal
la chuckled quietly as she started the ascent back up the tunnel, trying to ignore the sweat pouring down her body.  The air temperature grew cooler as she climbed further up.  The trip still took time, the climb itself proving to be difficult and her body feeling drained for some reason.  She didn’t know how long she had been walking but didn’t care, she just focused on putting one foot in front of the other on the steep slope.  She cried out in shock when they finally reemerged outside into the chilly night air; it felt almost icy after being inside the mountain.

As cold as it was it still felt good to be out here.  Letting out a loud groan Ca
lla set Lina back on the ground before sitting down on a large rock close by.

Ah, that feels much better.

“I couldn’t agree more.”  Calla stretched her legs out in front of her as far as she could, feeling the ache in her muscles as she did so.  She bent over and felt the bones in her back crack; the sound was a little unsettling, but she couldn’t complain with the relief that followed right after.

Lina stood up and stretched her front legs out in front of her, shifting her weight back for a moment while letting out a faint whine.  Abruptly she shifted her weight forward to stretch out her hind legs.  She certainly looked like she felt better judging from the way she
started bouncing around across the gravelly ground.  She slowly walked off into a dense clump of bushes. 
I think I saw a small spring on the way up here
, she said. 
I am going to try to find it—I am feeling very thirsty after being down there.  I will be back in a little while.

“Don’t take too long, Lina.”

Seriously, you do worry too much.
  With a rustling of leaves and the crunch of stones she disappeared down the mountainside, leaving Calla alone.

“You better not be gone too long, Lina,” she muttered to herself.
  She wrapped her arms protectively around herself.

That feeling was back, that sense something was out of place; she had hardly been out here for five minutes before it started up again.  Lina’s
departure didn’t help—if anything it made the feeling even worse.  Calla stood up and started pacing around the boulder in her anxiety.  The more she continued the more that feeling grew.  That warning of danger was stronger than ever.  She didn’t feel safe now.

“Damn it Lina, wher
e are you?” she said quietly.  Time felt like it was crawling; she couldn’t tell if it had been minutes or hours since Lina left.  She decided to go find the Tri-tail on her own and set off in the direction Lina had gone.

“Stop!” shouted a voice.  “Stop right there!”

Calla hadn’t gone more than a few yards.  She shrieked at the sound of the voice, backing away quickly as a massive form emerged from the bushes in front of her.  She stopped and whirled around when she heard movement behind her, discovering several more of them coming up the mountainside.  Ten men came up and moved to stand in a circle around her, cutting off her escape.  Panicked, she turned wildly from one hard face to the next in a desperate attempt to find another way out.

The first man who had spoken stepped towards her; his companions promptly closed the gap he left.  He raised one arm up, pointed towards the mountain’s peak.

“She has come!” he exclaimed.  “The Chosen One has come!”

No matter what she did, Calla couldn’t escape from the watchful eyes of the Council.

When
she was brought back to the city three weeks ago their response had been quick.  They sent word of her coming to every corner of the world they still controlled, ordered a whole week of festivities to celebrate—which she found herself required to attend—and forced her to make regular appearances in public.  Calla knew what they were really doing, of course, having heard of their practices from Mai, Hiran, and Elenia herself:  they were just out to show how powerful they were.  They didn’t really care about Calla’s talents, nor did they care about her opinions on the subject; she was nothing more than their new pet, an object to further prove their “right.”

Being stuck in Dranl’s palace didn’t come even close to being this bad.

The Council wasted no time in using her for their designs.  Every day her attendance at the Council’s meetings was expected; she had to sit in the meeting hall and listen as they droned on about what sounded like nothing, their voices echoing off the cold walls and high ceiling.  She brought a book with her once to entertain herself only to be struck by the High Councilor for being inattentive, his ring leaving a dark bruise on her cheek.  For most of the time that she didn’t have to be at the meetings she was confined to her rooms with a few exceptions: she was allowed to wander in the gardens, and there were occasions where she would be sent to make an appearance in the city.  But every time she was allowed out her steps were always shadowed by at least two of the Council Guard.

For every day Cal
la spent in the cold stone corridors of the Council’s palace, the more she wished for comfort from someone she knew:  Elenia, despite seeming unhelpful to her; Kira, who would do whatever it took to put a smile back on her face; Lina, who was still running around somewhere up on the mountain, hopefully nowhere near the Council’s patrols; her father, who would be able to give her the guidance she needed to get through this new misery.

But more than any of them, she missed
Hiran.  She had known him for so little time, and yet she had enjoyed having his company immensely.  Every time she thought about him, she was surprised by just how much his absence hurt.  She had heard nothing from or of him since he had dropped her off at Ren’s house, and she didn’t dare ask any of the Council if they knew anything of him.

She flat out didn’t trust them.

She wasn’t the only person in this place who didn’t like any of them: the people held little love for the Council as well.  They couldn’t express their feelings openly unless they wanted to end up in prison, but Calla could still see what they felt in their eyes—the people loathed the Council, but were powerless to change anything.  But when they looked on her she saw something else: pity.

That didn’t make her feel
any better; it made her feel worse.

Every night s
he sat out on the balcony outside her room under the stars.  It had become the only place she could go that was truly private, away from all prying and watchful eyes.  On most nights if she wasn’t staring up at the night sky wishing she could be somewhere else she was reading one of the books the Council men were kind enough to supply her with, a single candle perched on the small table so she could see the pages.  She didn’t find any of them interesting in the slightest bit—they all sounded fake, focusing on the heroic exploits and triumphs of another age for which the Council claimed some amount of credit.

Tonight she couldn’t put all her attention into her usual activities.  She was restless, too restless, pacing constantly in circles across the stone tile floor
; the book she tried reading she had thrown back into the room without a care as to where it landed.  She hated this feeling, how it always filled her with dread.  Something was happening or about to happen, something big.  But being shut away from the world, she didn’t have any idea about what was causing her agitation.

Voices drifted up from somewhere below her, rising to a rather high volume.  Cal
la stopped her pacing, listening intently.  She recognized one of voices as belonging to Mrok, the High Councilor, but couldn’t identify the other speaker.  She decided to listen in on them.  Of course she knew it was rude to do that, but since she hated everyone on the Council and thought they were all incompetent fools why let them keep their secrets and whisperings to themselves?  She crept over to the balcony’s edge, careful not to make any sound to alert the two below of her presence here.  Cautiously she peered over the rail.

The two men were on the platform directly below her.  Mrok sat on a chair in the middle of it, his dark blue cloak wrapped around him against the chill of
the night air.  His guest was seated next to him; from the look of his uniform Calla guessed he was one of the elite guards.  Both men stared out over the city and into the distance.

“…unrest is growing,” the guard was saying.  “I have heard the whisperings of the citizens.  They feel that you are using the girl.”

“Nonsense,” Mrok replied, rather harshly.  “She is not being used.  Because she follows our requests she is showing the people that the Great One supports us, since she is undoubtedly the Chosen One.”

“I’m afraid the people do not share your opinion on this, my lord Councilor.  I stand in the alleys listening as their talk comes through open windows.  Yes, they believe she is the chosen hero of the Great One, but they refuse to speak well of the Council.  They have seen the girl, and they say she dislikes you even more than they do.”

“The Great One speaks to us alone.  Who do they think they are to question decisions that are approved by the Lady who protects us?  And how dare they make such claims against our Chosen One!”

They have every right to
, Calla thought bitterly. 
You have no idea about what Elenia thinks of you now.

“That will not be enough to convince them of their errors,” the guard said.  “They are like the molten rock that churns from the mountain’s heart—you continually apply more pressure on them, and sooner or later they will explode upon you.”

“They wouldn’t dare.”  Mrok stood up and strode to the platform’s edge; Calla ducked back slightly, afraid he would see her if he looked up.  “Every one of them is a traitor if they believe any of those rumors.  Us at risk of total destruction?  The Great One is stronger—She will strike down any and all that stand to oppose us.”

In your dreams only
, Calla thought.

“They are starting to protest openly.  No promises of punishment at the hands of the divine hold any effect anymore.”

“We’ll see about that.”  Mrok stared down at the city in silence for a moment, his hands clasped behind him.  “Tell me, has the monster confessed to his crimes yet?”

“He has not, my lord Councilor.  We have tried everything we can think of to make him talk, yet he does not yield any such admissions.  All he ever says, in his pain and in his solitude, is he protects the Chosen One, that he refuses to do anything to betray her
or the Great One.”

Ca
lla would have walked away by now if the guard’s statement hadn’t sent her heart to pounding inside her chest.

“So, he still professes loyalty to the Lady even after all t
his time, monster like him?  How dare he claim such devotion to Her when his very presence is destructive to our world?  He wouldn’t know Her even if she stood right in front of him!  Everyone knows him for the filth he is: half-breed of the Brac, loyalty determined by the blood of his father which runs through his veins.  Bringing the girl to us was the only good thing he ever did and will ever do; he was condemned the day he was born, and nothing can redeem him now.”

Cal
la felt her blood turn to ice. 
Hiran…

“You are still keeping him locked up in the dungeons, I presume?”

“Of course.  But we have had to reinforce the bars of his cage—he keeps bending the main steel framework.  We had to find something stronger to keep him contained; we should have known that would happen after he tore the door to the regular cell off its hinges.”

“Do what you have to—just make him talk.  We will be rid of him after that.”

Calla chose that moment to leave, not caring to hear where the conversation turned from there.  Hiran was alive, but from the sound of things apparently not for long.  She blew out the candle next to her and quickly slipped back into her room, pausing only to grab the dark cloak draped across the foot of her bed before dashing to the door.  Slowly she opened it, hoping the rusted hinges wouldn’t screech to alert anyone.  No one was in the corridor in either direction—her guards never came up here, and there were no servants up at this hour unless they were called.  She wouldn’t be able to leave the palace without someone noticing, but she had no intention of actually leaving just yet; the place she wanted to go was inside this building, not out—and she knew of a shortcut to get there.

Quietly she tiptoed down corridors and flights of stairs, stopping at the end of each to
look around the corner to make sure no one was close by to see her.  She knew where she was going, having accidently wandered down into the dungeons on the third night of her stay after successfully losing her extra shadows on a fourth floor balcony—there was a passage leading directly to it down on the second floor of the building.  She hadn’t remembered noticing anyone down there last time, but then again the guards had been quick to notice her absence and organize a search for her, catching her up before she could do any kind of exploration.

But now she knew someone was there.

Once she reached the second floor she took the next two right turns and then one left to get to the large tapestry that hid a door to the stairwell she was looking for; lifting the heavy fabric to one side she pushed against the wooden door, thankful for its silence as it swung open.  As quickly as she could she made her way down the steep steps, passing another large wooden door as she kept going further down.  After a little while she finally reached the bottom of the staircase, a large archway that opened onto an even darker hall.  She stopped there for a moment, listening closely for any kind sound; apart from the squeaking rat that hurried past her foot it was deathly quiet down here.