Blackveil (77 page)
He nearly cut off her hand, but he turned the blade just in time, slashing through the sticky, strong filaments of the web. When her arm was free, she was able to draw her long knife and cut herself out the rest of the way. She backed away from the web, pulling sticky strands off her face and hair and body. The broken filaments of the web floated after her, reaching for her.
“Can we go now?” Yates asked.
“Definitely.” Karigan collected her staff and glanced back at the creatures. And did a double take. Their dance had concluded, and now the larger was clambering onto the back of the smaller, which had lowered its tail submissively to the side, its stinger planted in the earth.
A choked, half-hysterical laugh crept out of Karigan’s throat.
“What is it?” Yates asked.
“They weren’t fighting after all,” was all she said.
“Oh.”
She had no idea how long the mating of the creatures would take, so she hurriedly placed Yates’ hand on her shoulder and started leading him away as fast as her painful leg allowed. She did not have a plan or direction in mind, just to get as far away from the creatures and the web as she could.
“By the way,” she said as she limped along, “if I say I’m seeing something, you make sure I’m really seeing it.”
“Like Lynx earlier?”
“Yeah.”
“How do I do that?”
“I don’t know. Pinch me, kick me. Question me. Do whatever it takes.”
Yates sighed. “Life with you is not dull.”
Karigan lost track of what direction they were headed in. For all she knew they were wandering in circles, but she kept stumbling on until night swooped down on them like the dark wings of one of Blackveil’s giant avians. When Karigan found a seemingly safe place beneath a leaning pine—any place away from the web and those creatures seeming to be safe—she collapsed on the spot. Her leg was screaming and oozing, and all she cared about was getting off it. Immediately the languor descended on her once again. Yates slid down beside her.
“We lost our stuff,” he said.
“I know.”
“What about a shelter?”
“I’ll make one.” But she could not imagine rising again. All her remaining strength bled from her and her mind felt gray, as gray as the fog of Blackveil. With the pain and exhaustion, she just wanted to rest.
“We don’t have any food,” Yates said.
Why must he state the obvious? “Eat some dirt,” she mumbled.
“You want me to eat
dirt?
”
dirt?
”
“Thought I saw Ard.”
“Just now?”
“Earlier. When I was stuck in the web.”
“One of your illusions?”
“Uh-huh. If he saw us, he’d have brought the others to help us.”
“I hope,” Yates said, “this problem you’re having is a temporary thing.”
“Me, too,” she replied, leaning against his shoulder. She wished it were all temporary. Their chances of survival were dismal at best. They were without food or a reliable source of water. Alton had somehow survived for days in Blackveil under similar conditions, but he’d found the wall and Tower of the Heavens. Karigan and Yates were far away from the wall. For all Karigan knew, they’d passed into one hell or another, and the chances of finding their way out were growing less likely, especially with Yates blind and her own sight unreliable.
At the moment, she didn’t care. She just needed a little rest. She’d rest then somehow make them a shelter. Before she fell asleep, she had the presence of mind to remove her moonstone from her pocket, its brightness raising her spirits for a moment, but even that light could not hold back the darkness of deep exhaustion, and she dropped off even as the rains came once again.
THE ELETIANS’ TASK
D
arkness seeped into Karigan’s dreams, though she could not swear it was all dreams. She became aware of her head tucked against Yates’ chest, his arms wrapped around her, and his hand keeping hers clasped around the moonstone. Dozens of green eyes shone beyond the edge of the light. The shadow beasts had found them again. They nudged their noses at the light, but whined and backed into the dark as if it burned them.
arkness seeped into Karigan’s dreams, though she could not swear it was all dreams. She became aware of her head tucked against Yates’ chest, his arms wrapped around her, and his hand keeping hers clasped around the moonstone. Dozens of green eyes shone beyond the edge of the light. The shadow beasts had found them again. They nudged their noses at the light, but whined and backed into the dark as if it burned them.
“Keep the light shining,” Yates whispered to her.
Karigan did not awaken again until her world shifted. Yates moved and laughed, and there were other voices and enough light that she thought Blackveil must have been a dream and she was back in Sacor City in the full sun of summer. The green eyes of shadow beasts were gone, replaced by the shimmering faces of Eletians.
“They aren’t real,” she told Yates. She curled into a ball at the base of the tree, wondering vaguely how it could be that Yates was now talking to her hallucinations, unless he was a hallucination himself. Maybe nothing was real, just all in her head, and if that was the case, then the vision she’d seen of the king on his deathbed was similarly false. She smiled to herself and slipped away.
Someone tipped her head forward and pressed a bottle to her lips. She drank eagerly thinking it was just water, but it tasted of the cordial of the Eletians, of spring rain and ripening fruits. It was taken from her after just a few swallows. Were her hallucinations now taking over her other senses? Could one slake her thirst?
The clouds in her mind parted with the drinking of the cordial, and when she peeled open her eyes, she found Graelalea kneeling beside her.
“Are you real?” Karigan asked.
The Eletian tilted her head as if considering, the light of her moonstone flaring around her pearlescent armor and pale hair like a halo. On closer inspection, the armor was mud-splashed and beaded with rain, wet feathers and flaxen hair plastered against her head.
Karigan heard the patter of rain, but did not feel it. She was in a tent. She sighed in relief.
“You
are
real,” she said to Graelalea.
are
real,” she said to Graelalea.
The Eletian smiled. “Yes. You were elusive, but we have found you. You should have remained in one place when we lost you.”
“But I . . .”
“I know. The poison of the thorns in your blood played tricks in your mind. We shall do our best to draw it out, but Hana was the one with the healing touch among us, and she is gone.”
“How did you find us?”
“Excellent tracking skills, and your Lynx felt the hunger of the beasts, felt their drive to hunt and that they had caught the scent of something unusual. He presumed it was you and Yates that excited them, and he was able to follow their desire.”
Karigan didn’t want to imagine what it must have felt like for Lynx to touch the minds of those creatures.
“What about Yates? Can you help him?”
“Help him see again?” Graelalea asked. “That is something beyond our power. Perhaps with time, on the other side of the wall, he would regain his vision.”
“Have you told him?”
“We have not hidden the truth from him. We shall help him navigate the forest. It is remarkable the two of you survived on your own.”
Karigan thought she detected respect in the Eletian’s voice. If so, it meant the two of them had come a long way in their relationship since the first time they met, when it seemed Graelalea held only contempt for Karigan.
“For now you must rest,” Graelalea said.
“What . . . what about my leg?” Karigan realized it did not hurt presently. In fact, she did not feel it much at all. She wiggled her toes to make sure it was still attached.
“The cordial will help with the pain,” Graelalea replied, “and for the poison, Lynx suggested leeches. They are, after all, abundant here. We examined them closely and determined they are untainted by the forest. We have attached some to your wounds. Would you care to see?”
“No!” Karigan recoiled out of reflex at the thought of the leeches, mouths attached to her flesh and sucking her blood till they became bloated. Leeches were commonly used to treat a number of maladies, but Karigan had just about had it with creatures wanting to suck her blood or eat her.
“We did consider hummingbirds,” Graelalea said.
By the time Karigan realized the Eletian had made a joke, she was gone and the tent darkened. The energizing effects of the cordial faded and heaviness descended on Karigan. For the first time in a long while, she felt safe, as safe as she could be in Blackveil Forest. Someone else could be responsible for Yates, and someone else could keep watch over camp.
She tried not to think about the leeches feeding on her blood, and allowed the dark and heaviness to help her sink into sleep.
She was awakened sometime during the night by voices raised in anger, dreams of white feathers falling like snow and a silver key shining on her palm slipping away from waking memory. It took her a moment to remember where she was. All was not dark for moonstone and firelight glowed through the canvas of her tent. Silhouetted shadows slashed across the tent wall with curt gestures.
“We have seen enough!” It was Grant, and he was the loudest. “There is no reason to go any farther.”
“You may return as you like.” Graelalea, her voice cool. “We are certainly not forcing you to continue on with us.”
Grant laughed. It sounded half-hysterical. “You say that even knowing we’d never find our way back on our own and that we would be much less safe without you.”
“You have been given the option,” Graelalea replied. “I can give you no more than that for we must proceed with our journey. We are not turning back. Not yet.”
“So you’d just abandon us?” Grant demanded.
Graelalea must have deemed the question unworthy of answer because she provided none. One of the silhouettes began to drift away.
“What is it, then, that you’re after?” This from Ard. “What in the hells is so important that you must keep going on? What are we really here for? What do you seek?”
Graelalea’s silhouette paused, the dance of flame enlarging and diminishing her shadow by turns. “You are here because your king wished it.
I
know little of his motives, but you are here by his choice. I, and my tiendan, we are here because our crown prince wishes it.”
I
know little of his motives, but you are here by his choice. I, and my tiendan, we are here because our crown prince wishes it.”
“That is not much of an answer,” Ard grumbled. “
Why
does your crown prince want you here? I think after what we’ve been through, you owe it to us to tell us what people are dying for.”
Why
does your crown prince want you here? I think after what we’ve been through, you owe it to us to tell us what people are dying for.”
At first Graelalea did not respond and Karigan thought perhaps she would not because she chose not to, but much to Karigan’s surprise, she said, “We have come back for those who were left behind.”
“Those who were . . .” Ard sputtered.
Karigan imagined her Sacoridian companions looking as stunned and curious as she felt.
“Who?” Lynx asked in his low rumbling voice. “Who was left behind?”
Karigan felt the tension, the suspense, right through the canvas walls around her.
“Our Sleepers,” Graelalea said.
“Your tree people?” Ard blurted.
“There is a chance,” Graelalea replied in a calm voice, “that if the grove at Castle Argenthyne still stands, we may be able to awaken the Sleepers and rescue them; bring them back to Eletia.”
“And if this grove is gone like the one in Telavalieth?”
“We believe it had more of a chance of surviving than the others. There are . . . were powers at work at the castle.”
“You fools,” Grant said. “You see what this forest is, what it does. The answer is before you. Look what happened to Porter with those hummingbirds. Monstrous things killed one of your own, too, that Hana. That’s what the forest does to anything that lives here. And as for your castle and its powers ? Look what happened to Yates’ magic. It turned on him.”
“You do not understand.” A new voice had entered the fray: Ealdaen.
“Don’t I?” Karigan imagined spittle flying from Grant’s mouth, like a rabid dog ready to attack. “But of course, you are the ancient, wise ones, aren’t you, lording it over us like we’re worms. I’m telling you that it’s time to turn back. Whatever your castle was, it’s rubble now. And your Sleepers? Their grove probably rotted to the earth long ago.”
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