The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman

T
HE CREATURE SPRANG WITH A
rabid snarl, moving quickly to cut off their escape. No longer elven, it bounded after them with the lust of a maddened predator, tearing through brush and forest limbs, feral eyes blind to all but the thrill of its impending kill.

Laressa stumbled and went to one knee. She screamed for her daughter to run on, then spun to meet their pursuer’s final charge. A pair of blades shone darkly in the moonlight, slick with blood and thirsting for more. She looked past them, focused on her assailant’s eyes as she gripped the wellstone hung from her wrist. Raising it like a shield in the palm of her hand, she bid its power forth.

Light flared and crackled in a thin, forked streamer. Fearing she was too late, Laressa closed her own eyes and threw herself aside, hearing at the same time her daughter’s scream.

Upon a tangled bed of vine and root, Laressa’s entire body clenched, bracing for the inevitable. She could smell the Illychar’s fetid breath, and sense the creature’s hatred. After millennia of imprisonment, it would not be denied.

But the terrible moment passed, and still the daggers did not bite. Though her heartbeat was like a drum in her ears, she heard now her killer’s snarls of frustration. When she opened her eyes, she found it staggering about, sniffing and blinking in confusion, too disoriented to find its quarry a mere pace away. As it slashed aimlessly at the surrounding foliage, its growls of disappointment gave way to howls of rage.

Laressa hurried to regain her feet. The release would not grant her much time. And even if its effect were to last forever, she had by no means escaped the peril gnashing all around her.

Her next concern was not for herself, however, but for her daughter. She cast about frantically, trying to remember from which direction she had heard the young maiden scream. No easy task, given the chorus of shrieks and caterwauls that rent the night. She had worried upon hearing it that the child had witnessed her fall and meant to return to her. Now, she wished for just that.

That hope, like so many others this night, was engulfed by the horrifying truth. Laressa had managed just a few strides when her desperate search came to an abrupt end. Her daughter’s flight had been swift, but no elf was going to outrun a goblin—least of all a pair of the creatures Illysp-possessed and lying in ambush.

Laressa jerked to a halt as she watched the batlike fiends shred their victim.
Part jackals, part whirlwind, they tore at the bloody pulp with hooked teeth and barbed claws, scrambling over and atop one another, painting themselves and the earth red. Laressa told herself that the writhing mass beneath was not—could not possibly be—her daughter. Then the victim arched sharply, and their eyes met.

One of those eyes was missing. The other was wide, its emerald ring drowning against a blood-filled white. Tresses of red-gold hair hung matted and torn. But through them, the lone eye still saw. An arm reached out, covered in deep lacerations, and the mouth opened in a soundless cry. A plea for mercy. An expression of unspeakable pain.

Laressa matched that cry with a terrible, bloodcurdling wail that peaked momentarily above the cacophony. One of the goblins looked to her with a blood-spattered maw. In the next instant, she sent a brilliant bolt of scintillating light smashing into it, igniting it. It screeched as it flew through the air to lie in a charred heap. The other spun away, a black funnel cloud in the moonlit darkness. The light struck it from behind, and the beast disintegrated in an explosive burst of red fire.

Laressa Solymir, keifer of the elven nation of Finloria, crumbled then, her strength and power spent. As she landed upon her knees, her gaze fell upon the wellstone in her palm, the multifaceted crystal gone dark. Her protection against the enemy was gone. She had nothing left with which to defend herself from the bestial darkness come to lay claim.

Looking once more upon her only child, Laressa welcomed its approach.

Somehow, without even realizing it, she crawled forward to kneel at her daughter’s side. The girl’s mouth groped uselessly, vocal cords torn. Her remaining eye shone with anguish and fright. Laressa knew she had to finish it, but she could not find the strength.

A bloody hand found hers, clamped itself over the wellstone.

Laressa sobbed as the crystal whitened, fed by the child’s remaining life strength. Her daughter could only give so much. With tears in her eyes, Laressa forced herself to draw the rest.

A moment, and it was done.

All around, the slaughter continued. Hers was but one of a thousand such agonies suffered this night. She could hear the Illychar sweeping through the forest from all angles, feeding with ravenous delight. The screams of her people did not lie. Before the break of dawn, the once-proud Finlorian nation would be no more. Doomed to a fate they had foolishly thought to avoid. Sentenced to die at the hands of the most relentless enemy their world had ever known.

And it had been
her
duty to prevent it.

The thought angered Laressa. Despite her guilt, despite her pain, that fury lent her strength enough to do what was required. She gripped her wellstone, calling upon its power to light a blaze beneath her daughter’s remains. The energy she had drawn from the child was barely enough, and left the stone
dark and empty once more. But Laressa would not fail her daughter so completely as to allow her to become an Illychar herself.

When it was over, the finality of what she had done drove Laressa to her feet. Blinded by tears, she ran from the horror, ran from the pain. She ran from the folly, the nearsightedness, that had led to this calamity. She ran from what she had done, and from what she had failed to do.

All around her, the woods thrashed with Illychar pursuit. Their lusty howls mocked her efforts. She sensed their dark forms, hunting her with darker intent. All had been trampled and destroyed, or soon would be. The Illysp knew no other way.

She tripped then and pitched to the ground, gasping for breath, only to choke on a mouthful of dirt. Her heart pounded. From ahead now, and from either side, enemies approached. She was surrounded, defeated. Laressa was too heartsick to care.

Nevertheless, when the first of the Illychar reached her, she cried out, horrified by its frigid touch upon her back. Rolling to the side, she called upon her wellstone’s magic, even though there was nothing left. A moment later, she was glad the release had failed, for as she glanced up, her fury was swept away by a wave of relief.

Eolin!

She blinked vigorously, then stared. Eolin, her husband, had come for her. In this, her blackest hour, he had returned to help shield and sustain her. His hand reached out. Even now, his face shone with wisdom and love.

Tears of joy mixed with those of torment as Laressa allowed him to pull her to her feet. Throwing her arms about his neck, she wept in his ear, begging his forgiveness while confessing all: the warnings ignored, her arrogance in thinking them safe, her inability to protect their child…She held nothing back, for here was someone with whom to share her agony and failures, someone who could soothe her fears, someone…

…who had not yet returned her embrace.

A knot of sickening dread stole Laressa’s breath, as her wracked mind suddenly recalled that Eolin had been murdered weeks ago. Before she could stop, convince herself that she did not want to know, her jaw lifted, forcing her gaze to meet her husband’s eyes. Immediately she recognized the pain therein—the ultimate anguish of an enslaved soul.

A soul gripped in the mandibles of possession.

Eolin’s features seemed to melt, his face shriveling into a blackened death mask. The Illychar smiled, as if laughing at the cries of its body’s former spirit, and lifted a single hand.

Laressa screamed as it found her throat.

S
HE AWOKE WITH A START,
shivering through a cold sweat as she inhaled sharply of the musky air. Just like that, she was back in her
denzaan
, her burrow home, safe beneath the earth. Even so, she lunged reflexively for the
bracelet that lay upon her bedside table, clutching its wellstone in her palm. Drawing upon the energy stored within that central crystal, she began to calm, her pulse to slow. All at once, the savage images were receding. The Illychar, the devastation, Eolin’s possession—all faded swiftly from mental view.

Small comfort. For Laressa knew they would return.

She hung her head, fighting to steady her breathing. In doing so, she remained careful not to close her eyes, lest the phantom horrors be resummoned before they had fully dispersed. She had not the strength to confront them again.

Yet she would have to, she knew. Though she did all she could these days to avoid it, she had to sleep at some point. And when she did, the nightmares would be waiting.

It had been that way for three weeks now, ever since the visit of the one called Torin—the one whose coming had ended her life as she had known it, and left behind this cruel emptiness for her to endure in its stead. For it was his quest that had brought on the rest: Crag’s betrayal, Warrlun’s retribution, Eolin’s murder…

Her eyes did close then, seeking to deny a reality every bit as horrible as her dreams. It was the former that had spawned the latter. There was no escape, in sleep or in waking, from her agonies. The only question seemed to be which would lay final claim to her broken spirit.

It would happen soon. The dreams had been growing stronger, more intense, every night. At this rate, madness lay just around the corner.

A welcome relief, some part of her whispered, should it find her before the Illysp.

Drawing several steadying breaths, Laressa slipped from beneath her covers, leaving her wellstone bracelet to hang upon her wrist. As her feet brushed upon the moss that carpeted her earthen bedchamber, its life sent unspoken assurances through her skin. But for how long? How long did even the flowers and trees and grasses have once there was no one left to care for them? For she had seen the end in her dreams, the twisted landscapes of utter desolation, where lonely winds whistled through bare canyons of blackened stone. Where the heavens wept over the charred remains of a blistered earth. It would take centuries, eons maybe, for it to reach that point, for the Illychar to eradicate even themselves. Yet such was the inevitable outcome of their unchallenged reign. Eolin, and then the dreams, had told her so.

She sat for a moment at the edge of her woven bed, her head in her hands, wishing now that Eolin had died before he had shared with her the truth of the Vandari and their legacy. In passing that information on to her with his dying breaths, he had made her the final bearer of that knowledge. He had not done so to burden her with guilt—had begged her, in fact, to let any resulting failure rest with him alone. But there was no separating the two. Laressa, not Eolin, was now last of the Vandari, defender of the Swords of Asahiel and keeper of the secrets of the Illysp War.

The fate of all rested in her hands.

And yet, what could she do? Eolin had had his reasons for refusing to join Torin’s crusade, none of which had changed with his untimely death. His bitterness toward the humans that had come to beg his aid was shared by all Finlorians, and with good reason. Why should her people risk themselves to help those who had hunted them to near extinction? Aside from that, their powers of magic were no more—or at least, those of the kind Torin had been seeking. She had knowledge only—of a secret history, yes, but if Torin had been sent by a scion of the Entient Algorath, as claimed, then surely the young king already knew everything she might share. And lastly, even if her people wished to help the humans, and possessed the required powers, how was she to reach them while trapped in this valley by her father’s armies?

She had gone over it in her mind for weeks now. Even while grieving, even while wishing upon Torin and his friends the fate they deserved, she had been thinking it through, in search of what she could do—if not to protect
them
, then to protect her own people. For this was not a menace that would be satisfied with laying claim to the shores upon which it had been born. Its cravings were too primitive, too bestial to ever be sated. It would hunger, and it would grow, and no matter the obstacle, it would find a way to spread.

“Mother, you promised you would sleep.”

Laressa spun, startled by the voice. In the near darkness of her denzaan’s bedchamber, she could scarcely see the outline of the figure that stood upon her threshold.

“I tried, child.”

Her daughter touched one of the exposed root tendrils that dangled from the ceiling, coaxing forth more light. Its brightened glow revealed youthful skin, emerald eyes, and long tresses of delicate blond hair. Despite the welcome sight, Laressa flinched, seeing for a moment that same face torn apart by goblin Illychar, contorted by suffering as her life’s energy drained away into her mother’s wellstone…

“You had another nightmare,” Annleia presumed, her concern evident as she stepped forward.

Denial was useless. Most likely, she had been awakened, as on previous nights, by her mother’s screams.

Annleia sat down beside her and took her hand. “Was it about Father?”

Laressa winced. She meant Eolin, of course, her adoptive father—the only father she had ever known. But Laressa could not help but think of Warrlun, the child’s birth father—he who had taken Eolin’s life in reprisal for a perceived wrong.

Annleia reached up to feel her forehead. “Are you ready to speak of it?”

She was not. Nor did she think she ever would be. It was unfair, of course. The child deserved to know the full truth behind her father’s death. She deserved to know who Warrlun really was, and what had driven him to commit such a savage act. On top of that, she deserved to know about the peril she and the rest of their people faced, in order to come to terms with it in her own way.

But Laressa could not bring herself to share such grave news with anyone—least of all the one true love she had left in this world. To even think of exposing her precious child to these afflicting horrors was more than she could bear.