Blackveil (94 page)

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Authors: Kristen Britain

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #fantasy, #Epic

BOOK: Blackveil
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“My ... my lord, I’ve awakened the Sleepers.”
“You allowed most of them to escape through time.”
Grandmother did not understand the statement, but something niggled in the back of her mind. The dream, maybe.
“Who are you?” He demanded.
“You do not know?” she asked. How could God not know?
His gaze lost focus and He appeared to look inward, then He nodded to Himself. “This one has told me all that I need to know.” He must mean Deglin. He gazed at Grandmother once again, but this time His assessment was more approving. “You work against the Sacor Clans in my name to return the empire to its glory.”
“Yes, my lord. It is what I live for.”
“Then you shall return across the wall to continue your work. I shall see that you have safe passage through this land.” Sweat streamed down the face that was Deglin’s, his cheeks flushed.
“What of you, my lord?”
“The others are still here. There is one among them whose taste I know.
They
will not receive safe passage.” He gave her a grim smile, Deglin’s flesh turning redder as if he were burning up.
Grandmother knew her God was not a gentle God, but she had never feared Him before. She did now. Sarat had wilted to the ground sobbing, and Min and Cole kept their heads bowed, eyes averted.
Lala watched him curiously, and then like a miracle, she opened her mouth and a clear bright note came singing out of her. Everyone stared aghast at her, even God. The note rose up and up into the mist and limbs of the great trees, the voice of an angel.
God laughed again and strode over to Lala, steam rising from Deglin’s body, and He placed His hand on her shoulder. “This little one has some power in her. Teach her well.”
“I will, my lord,” Grandmother replied, stunned by how well the spell of the redbird had worked. Perhaps the presence of God had enhanced Lala’s new, glorious voice. She concentrated for a moment, directed her thoughts toward the wall, but heard no music there; felt only consternation and grief.
“I must go now,” God said.
“I love you,” Lala sang out.
God patted her on the head, then Deglin’s body slipped limply to the ground like a shed skin. Wind gusted once again through the grove. Grandmother crawled over to Deglin, but found no life in him, though his flesh burned so hot that she could only conclude that God’s presence must have boiled him from the inside out.
Lala sang a dirge that broke them all down to weeping. They held each other, comforting one another in a strange combination of grief and joy. It was a day of loss, and a day of miracles. God had walked among them, and Lala sang with an angel’s voice!
Grandmother assumed that the others God had mentioned were only going to know His wrath. She smiled through her tears, holding Lala close.
THE CHOSEN
MASK
T
he companions set off through the spiraling ways of Castle Argenthyne. The Eletians, with Lynx, had sealed off the grove entrance and blocked the corridor linking to the chamber with the moondial to stop, or at least slow down, any pursuit by the remaining Sleepers. After considering their options, Ealdaen decided their best route of escape would be through the castle, traveling inward to its core, then turning outward and westward to the spiral of the castle that loomed over the lake they’d seen from the forest, the Pool of Avrath.
From there, Ealdaen explained, they could travel north and retrace their way along the trail they’d used to get here.
The Eletians maintained a severe pace. Yates and Lynx took turns supporting Karigan as she hopped and limped along, but invariably she and whoever was helping her fell behind. Now and then Telagioth or Lhean would trot back to see how they were faring.
Around and around they went, only to enter counter curves, circling in new directions. The architecture was impossible. Were they getting anywhere?
“This castle is making me dizzy,” Yates muttered more than once.
They passed through numerous chambers, but never paused to look. Karigan perceived fleeting impressions of flowing sculptures, dry fountains, clusters of furniture, but it all ran together. Sometimes they skirted clumps of bone and fabric and broken weaponry on the floor. The walls retained their inner glow, though they’d grown more dusky, perhaps with the advent of night, or because Laurelyn was truly gone.
Karigan started stumbling so much that both Lynx and Yates needed to support her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her mind felt numb, but the pain of her leg burned intensely.
“You need rest,” Lynx said. “We all do, but Ealdaen fears the remaining Sleepers will regain entry to the castle either at the grove or somewhere else and come after us.”
“Seems safer in here than out in the forest,” Yates said.
But as they entered another chamber, they found the Eletians waiting for them, and it was a good thing for Karigan’s legs gave out altogether—she could no longer make them support her weight. Lynx and Yates lowered her to the floor, and Lynx placed his pack behind her so she’d have something to lean against.
“She can’t go on like this,” Lynx told the Eletians.
Karigan did not hear the rest of the conversation for she fell sound asleep where she sat.
 
She awoke to the ghostly light of the castle. Someone had draped a blanket over her. Lynx and Yates snored nearby, but she heard the singsong murmur of the Eletians as an undertone to her sleeping companions. She lifted her head and saw the three Eletians sitting cross-legged on the floor together, carrying on a conversation in their own tongue.
The tower chamber they were in was far more vast than any of the others they’d passed through. Subtle crosscurrents breathed freshening air across her face. Three large portals, and several smaller doorways yawned around the chamber’s circumference. In the chamber’s center rose a giant tree carved of stone with leaves of silver that fluttered and flashed in the air currents. Roots sank into the floor, or seemed to.
“Do you like the tree?” Ealdaen asked, having broken off his conversation with Telagioth and Lhean to gaze at her.
“It’s amazing,” she said.
“A gift from King Santanara long before war came to us.”
“What is this place?” Karigan asked.
“The core of Castle Argenthyne, its nexus, the meeting of the ways.”
She peeled off the blanket and shivered in the cool air. She tried to rise, and found it difficult with both a bad leg and a bad wrist. Lhean hurried over with silent steps and helped her up.
“Should you not rest more?” he inquired. “It is the middle of the night.”
“I will, but I’ve got to, um . . .”
“Ah. I understand. Do you require assistance?”
The idea of the Eletian helping her to relieve her bladder mortified her. “Er, no, thank you,” she hastily replied.
With the aid of the bonewood, she limped for the nearest corridor and found an alcove in which to take care of her need. When she returned to the chamber, she felt herself lured to the tree. Some of the leaves had fallen from their branches and shone brightly on the floor. An elbow where root met trunk cradled an ovoid sphere of silver. Drawn to it, like a crow to a shiny object, she approached carefully. She saw her reflection in it.
“It can’t be,” she murmured.
“What is it?” Ealdaen asked.
She jumped, not having heard his approach from behind her, or that of Lhean and Telagioth.
“What’s going on?” It was Lynx, his voice crusty with sleep. Both he and Yates were sitting up.
“Karigan has found something,” Ealdaen replied.
Karigan was almost afraid to touch the thing, but she picked it up, a looking mask. She couldn’t believe it. It had weight in her hand, appeared solid in every way. There was her face reflected back at her, with the Eletians gazing over her shoulders, all warped by the convex shape of the mirror.
“When I chose . . .” she began. “I didn’t think . . . I don’t understand.” She had told them about the white world and her experiences there before they’d left the chamber of the moondial.
“King Santanara was correct when he called your tumbler a trickster,” Ealdaen said. “You must have pleased him. Handle this object with care.”
“I didn’t want any of the masks,” Karigan said, “but I had to choose.” She rotated the mask in her hand and there were reflections upon reflections, a mosaic of silver leaves mirroring into infinity.
Lynx and Yates had risen, and now crossed the chamber to join them.
“Karigan always gets the good stuff,” Yates said. “First the bonewood, and now this.”
Karigan ignored him. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Whatever you decide to do with it,” Ealdaen said, like an echo of King Santanara, “choose carefully.”
She was curious as to what the inside of the looking mask was like. How could one see through it? She had no wish to wear it—that seemed a dangerous thing to do—but she couldn’t help being curious.
When she wondered how to open the mask, a hairline seam appeared around its circumference as if in answer, the two halves subtly parting like a clam shell. She licked cracked lips and lifted the faceplate. It moved on hidden hinges.
The interior of the mask was mirrored, as well. There was no cushioning or straps to help support it on the wearer’s head. It sang to her, implored her to wear it. She lifted the mask so she could gaze through the faceplate, and when she did, she almost dropped the mask. With a flick of her wrist, the faceplate swung closed with a distinct
click
and the seams vanished.
“What did you see?” Ealdaen asked.
Karigan’s heart thrummed. “The universe,” she whispered.
Just then a wind roared through one of the arched portals, the castle seeming to shriek, snatching leaves from the tree, the rest raging like thrusting daggers. One clipped Karigan’s cheek as it flew off the tree. Warm blood flowed. The walls of the chamber dimmed, the castle stricken.
Karigan knew why, she knew what had changed. She’d borne Mornhavon the Black within her. She knew his feel. A sickening pall draped over her. Finally, their timeline had merged with his. She had not taken him far enough into the future.
She turned to Ealdaen. “It’s—”
“I know,” he replied.
Just as suddenly as the maelstrom had begun, it ceased. The remaining leaves on the tree clattered and chimed against one another. Those strewn across the floor looked like the shards of a shattered mirror.
Karigan peered around the chamber trying to perceive Mornhavon. He was there, but well-cloaked.
“What’s wrong?” Lynx asked. “What happened?”
“Mornhavon the Black is here,” Karigan replied, still unable to pinpoint him. He lacked a physical form of his own, but he could use others. She squinted at her companions, but they all gazed fearfully over their shoulders.
“Perhaps we should leave,” Lhean said.
“There is no running from him,” Ealdaen replied. “He is the master of the forest.”
“So we just wait?”
Karigan’s mind raced with possibilities. Maybe she could bear Mornhavon into the future again, let him inside her as before. She almost sobbed, remembering the violation of it. How would she move forward in time without the aid of the First Rider? Could she return to the moondial and move him to a piece of time in the future? Were the moondials able to do that, or did they only go to the past? If she could cross thresholds, surely she should be able to—
“Can I look at the mask?” Yates asked.
“What?”
“The looking mask. I was just wondering if I could have it for a moment.”
“I don’t think this is the time.” But she felt strangely compelled to let him have it. She took one step toward him, and then another. He reached out to receive it. “No,” she said, but her resistance crumbled and she took another step.
She glanced at the mask and saw Yates’ reflection in it, the black, cloudy aura hovering around him. “Oh, Yates,” she murmured and put her will into resisting him.

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