Trials (39 page)

But no spirit came.

Sonea shifted uneasily. Iruki noticed her.

“What’s wrong, Sonea?”

“I feel something strange in my chest, as if an invisible hand was pulling at my soul,” exclaimed the scholar fearfully, unable to find any logical way of explaining what she was feeling. “But it’s totally irrational!”

“Stay calm, Sonea. I know what it is, don’t resist it, let it pull at you.”

“Pull? Who?” asked the young librarian, surprised and puzzled.

“Be quiet! You’re giving me a headache, you pair of clucking hens!” said Morksen harshly.

And at that moment the two medallions, Iruki’s and Sonea’s, gave out a synchronized flash which blinded everyone in the tomb of the Lord of Air.

“What the…” cried Morksen, covering his eyes.

The medallions pulsated twice more, each time more strongly, then went out.

“Oh… Oh…” muttered Lindaro.

At that moment an enormous whirlwind began to form in the hall.

“Hold on to each other, quick!” Yakumo said.

The wind grew stronger, and in an instant it was whipping them with the force of a hurricane. Lasgol reached them and held on to the others, who were bunched tightly together. A moment later Morksen did the same, with gritted teeth. The vortex of the whirlwind enveloped them and the six were pushed up to the ceiling, spinning fast, floating in the hurricane winds. Up and up they went towards the lofty vault of the tomb. An instant before they struck it, the wind reached its highest speed and power, the dome of the cavern opened with a golden flash and the whirlwind shot out towards the surface.

The six wretched prisoners of the whirlwind lost consciousness. Helplessly, they were swallowed up by the cyclone.

Hartz ran into the funerary chamber, smiling as he remembered his beloved’s recent words. But his smile faded when he saw what was going on in there. The first thing he identified was the Ilenian Guardian in the white hooded tunic, and that made his hair stand on end. Then, in the center, he saw Komir.

For the first time in his life, Hartz was speechless.

Komir was standing on a ring of intense fire, but for some inexplicable reason, he seemed not to be burning, as if he were immune to fire. This left the giant totally baffled.

But how can it be? What’s going on here? Magic, that’s what it is: filthy, treacherous Ilenian magic.

Hartz half-closed his eyes to see better, and was then able to make out a reflection on the translucent sphere around Komir.

Ah, so that’s it! A damned magical sphere that acts like a shield!

A little reassured by the discovery, he launched his attack.

“Hartz, be careful!” Komir shouted, stepping forward and crossing the ring of fire.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to skewer him like a pig!” cried Hartz as he ran with his sword raised above his head.

The Guardian turned to him and raised his staff.

Too late, you’re mine, I have you at my sword’s reach,
thought the huge Norriel with a smile, and struck the figure at head level to decapitate him.

The sword bumped against a layer of solid lava and bounced back. A sphere of fire became visible around the Guardian.

“What the…” exclaimed Hartz, totally perplexed.

“Careful! He has a sphere of fire and lava that protects him from attacks!” Komir warned him.

This worried Hartz. If this being was protected against his attacks, things were going to get ugly.

The Mage advanced towards Hartz and he was forced to retreat; the flames of the sphere were too intense to bear.

“What are we going to do?” he asked Komir nervously.

“I don’t know. Let me think!”

“Well, think fast or he’ll roast me!”

The Guardian cast a spell with his maleficent chanting, and a ball of fire shot out of his staff towards the giant. Hartz threw himself to one side by instinct. The missile brushed his shoulder, burning him painfully, and crashed against the wall at the far end, where it burst into scorching flames. When he saw the explosion Hartz felt real terror; he had already witnessed the devastating power of that kind of magic in the hands of Mirkos, at Silanda. The charred bodies of the Nocean soldiers came to his mind. Magic in general scared him, and fire magic most of all. He stood up and saw that the rings of fire had gone out. With a look at the Guardian Hartz knew he was going to be burned to ashes.

“Do something, Komir! He’s going to roast me!” he shouted to his friend, and ran like one possessed towards the altar in the center of the funerary chamber. At his back he heard the lugubrious chanting of the Guardian and knew that another ball of fire was coming his way. He dropped the big sword and reached the altar. Using all his momentum he put his hands on it, then leapt over it and fell on the other side. The ball of fire which was chasing him exploded against the altar, flames bursting out at the front while Hartz huddled at the rear against the red granite. The flames tried to reach him around the edges and over the top of the coffin, but the giant crouched down as tightly as he could and the flames did not reach him, by a hair’s breadth

“Hartz! Are you all right? Say something, big guy!” shouted Komir.

“Kill him, Komir or else I’m a dead man!” Hartz shouted back, aware that he would not survive another attack from the Guardian’s fire magic.

In that moment of despair Hartz recalled the face of his fierce redhead, the woman who with her character, strong temper, far-eastern beauty and heart of a tigress had captured his heart forever. He did not want to die in that chamber, not from some selfish feeling of self-preservation, but because he did not wish to part from his beloved and leave her drowned in a pool of pain and bitterness. He had to think of something, even though strategy was not exactly his strong point. Komir was the one with the brilliant ideas. Hartz knew his limitations and was used to leaving that sort of thing to his friend, so he could concentrate on what he did best: crushing skulls!

He crawled to the right-hand edge of the altar and took a peek. The Guardian was attacking Komir with bolts of fire, trying to penetrate his friend’s protective sphere. Komir’s face showed signs of his exhausting struggle. The Guardian began to launch balls of fire against Komir, who was forced to retreat to the back of the chamber in the face of the flames which sought to devour him. Hartz ducked back again; the chamber was an oven of flames and heat.

Think, think! I must save Komir, or else he’ll be killed. He won’t be able to hold out much longer. If Kayti was here… she’d know what to do, she always has a plan in that little head of hers… But I’m alone, I must find the way to help Komir by myself. Think! Think!

Komir bent one knee. His arms were stretched out in front of him trying to prevent the sphere from being destroyed.

Seeing this, Hartz had an idea.

“Move towards him!” he shouted at Komir.

His friend looked at him, not understanding.

“Do what I say, move towards him!”

Komir looked at him for a moment, then stood up with a terrible effort and began to move toward the Guardian, who kept sending him spell after spell of fire.

“Go on, don’t falter, go on!”

Komir moved forward, keeping up the sphere around him, with a supreme effort.He reached the Guardian, and the two spheres touched.

“Now attack! Break his sphere with the magic of the medallion!” Hartz said, “All you have to do is reach out your hand and touch his sphere.”

And then Komir understood what his friend had planned.

“Come on, break it with your touch,” cried Hartz. “I know you can do it, you’ve done it before!” He was referring to the fateful incident during the Bear Ceremony, which had given him the idea.

Komir closed his eyes. Concentrating all his power, he reached out to touch the protective sphere of the Guardian just as a bolt of fire reached his own.

As a result there was a tremendous explosion. A dazzling crystalline blast of light filled the chamber. Komir was thrown backwards and hit the back wall with a tremendous impact, which made Hartz’s heart sink. The Ilenian Guardian was thrown back in the opposite direction and hit the entrance wall with a brutal impact.

Both of them fell unconscious.

Hartz leapt over the altar in a single breath. He picked up his sword from the floor, and before the Guardian could get up again he clove him in two with a massive blow.

“Not bad at all for a blockhead like me, right?” he cried, full of pride, looking at the shattered Guardian. “Today Hartz saves the day!”

Komir moaned, badly hurt, and collapsed.

Hartz ran to help him.

Kendas was examining the two halves of the Guardian’s body with analytical eyes, studying every bit of that dry, shriveled being. All its fluids had been consumed a long time before. It looked more like a mummy than someone who at some distant point in the past had been alive.

Asti and Aliana came up to him. The Healer had been working bravely for hours, healing the horrible burns she had suffered throughout her body. Kendas could not explain to himself how Aliana had managed to use her Gift with all the pain she was enduring. It must have been a true horror. She was exhausted. Her face was extremely pale, and her eyes had deep lines under them. The burns on her young flesh had been very serious, and hence would need a long period of recovery, the Healer had explained this to him. Unfortunately there would be ugly scars on her skin which Aliana could not remove with her Gift. Those scars would mark her body as a testimony to the day they had faced the great volcano and come out alive. Kendas felt bad for the brave Healer.

Aliana sat on the floor and closed her eyes. Asti helped her lie down so she could rest. Kendas found himself smiling at the Usik girl. Asti, so delicate, seemed out of place among them, in that inhospitable landscape, and he felt a constant urge to protect her from the dangers which surrounded them. A subconscious need which had begun during the escape from Usik territory and which he knew was growing all the time, even though there was nothing he was able to do about it. Of all the members of the group she was the most fragile and helpless, and the greater the dangers they came across, the more Kendas felt this need to protect the young girl with skin the color of eucalyptus leaves. As he watched the delicate features of the girl she looked into his eyes and returned a faint smile, only to look away shyly.

Kendas wondered what the young Usik was doing there, mixed up in this dangerous situation which might end her life at any moment.
She finds herself dragged into this chain of hostile events, just like me. What am I doing here? I must think it over, seriously. I ought to be fighting for my country in the battlefield like the Royal Lancer I am. This wretched quest had nothing to do with me. It’s something that concerns Komir and Aliana, not me, not Rogdon. But I promised Prince Gerart that I’d rescue Aliana, and until I deliver her back safe and sound I can’t leave her, no matter how much my soldier’s heart may wish to go and defend my country. And now Asti… I must protect her too… she’s like a helpless little bird surrounded by predators, she won’t survive this nightmare we’re immersed in. I have to stay with the group and protect both Aliana and Asti. They mustn’t come to any harm, on my honor as a Royal Lancer!

Komir was moaning low. He was leaning against the wall, slowly recovering from his fight against the Guardian, and did not look well. He was exhausted. Hartz was talking to him.

Night fell, and the group rested without thoughts of anything but sleep. The following day it was several hours before they gradually began to recover from that terrible experience. In the middle of the afternoon Aliana stood up with difficulty and took the grimoire from the mummified hands of the dead Guardian. She examined it carefully, turning the pages with care as if afraid that the symbols might disappear under her fingers.

“It’s just like the one we found at the Temple of Earth,” she said without taking her eyes off the volume.

“Do you understand it?” Kendas asked. “Can you read what’s written in it?”

“No, unfortunately I can’t decipher these symbols, they’re totally alien to me.”

“The one we really need for this is Lindaro,” Kayti said.

“The good man of faith will be praying at the Temple of Light in Ocorum. It’s a bit far…” Hartz said.

“Anybody else here know anything about Ilenian symbols?” Kayti asked.

They all remained silent.

Komir stood up with Hartz’s help; his body seemed barely able to support him. He took a couple of steps and stopped. Hartz held him up with his arm.

“We’ll have time to study that arcane volume. I’m sure there are spells of great power in it, but this isn’t the time. We have more urgent things to deal with.”

Kendas saw something in Komir’s eyes that made him ask:

“What are you talking about, Komir?”

The Norriel warrior turned to his companions.

“The medallions brought us here, to the middle of nowhere, far from the hands of the goddesses, in the deepest deserts. We nearly perished in the dunes, we’ve faced a giant volcano erupting and an Ilenian Guardian. All that for one reason only, with one single purpose… to reach this Ilenian Temple… this funerary chamber… to find…”

Understanding dawned on Aliana’s face. “The Medallion of Fire…” she said, and pointed to the vivid crimson coffin.

Komir held his own medallion in his hand, looking at it as he went up to the sarcophagus.

“That’s what the other two medallions, its brothers, wanted us to find. I don’t know the ultimate purpose, but there’s no doubt in my mind, in my soul, that we’re in the Temple of Fire of the Ilenians and that the Medallion of Fire is what we came here to find. Hartz, help me get to the coffin.”

Hartz helped his friend. and Komir stretched out his arm and put his hand in the sarcophagus where the Lord of Fire, the Ilenian King, rested.

Kendas came closer, anxious to take a look at the mummified body. Aliana had told him all about the medallion of the Temple of Earth which she wore, and since then curiosity had been pecking at his spirit like a woodpecker on a tree.

Komir removed the dust and dirt which covered the chest of the great Ilenian lord, and the medallion was revealed. It was very similar to the other two medallions, but in this case the jewel was crimson, like an enormous ruby. Kendas was stunned at the size of the pendant and the beauty of the gem. It must be worth a fortune in gold!

Komir picked it up.

His own medallion flashed intensely.

Komir cried out with pain, let go of the medallion and took a step back.

“What is it, Komir?” Aliana cried as she ran to his side.

“It burns! The medallion… it burns!”

“Damned Ilenian magic!” snorted Hartz as he supported his friend.