DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (15 page)

No sense in worrying about that now, he decided; so he kept the malachite functioning until he caught his balance, then, with a deep breath, let it go.

Only the amber was functioning now, and it kept him above the water. With another deep and steadying breath, his confidence in the stone growing, Avelyn walked out across the dark waters, his feet barely making the slightest depression on the rolling surface.

He looked back over his shoulder several times as he moved out from the abbey. He had to get far enough away so that using the ruby would not pose any risk to the structure, and even farther than that, considering the angle of the tall tower, if he wanted the two masters and the Father Abbot truly to witness the demonstration.

Now Avelyn called upon the serpentine, a stone he had never before put to any real test. He knew its reputed properties, of course, but he had never attempted to use them. Master Jojonah had done so once in Avelyn's presence, when he had retrieved a jewel from a hot hearth, and the young monk had to focus on that now to take faith that the serpentine would protect him.

All too soon, the moment was upon him. He was far out from shore, standing firm on the rolling waves, the serpentine shield strong about him. Avelyn put the ruby in his hand.

"He might have slipped under the waters," Siherton said dryly. "A great and difficult task we will have in retrieving the stones."

Father Abbot Markwart chuckled, but Master Jojonah didn't appreciate the levity. "Brother Avelyn is worth more to us than all the stones in St.-Mere-Abelle combined," he asserted, drawing incredulous looks from both his companions.

"I think, perhaps, that you have become too close to this novice," the Father Abbot warned.

Before the old man could go on, though, his breath was stolen away as a tremendous fireball erupted out at sea, rings of searing flames spreading out wide from a central point that the three knew to be Avelyn.

"Pray that the serpentine shield was in full!" Markwart gasped, thoroughly stunned by the intensity and size of the blast. The ruby was strong, but this was ridiculous!

"I told you!" Master Jojonah said over and over. "I told you!"

Even Siherton had little in the way of rebuttal. He watched, as impressed as his companions, as the fireball widened and churned, as the ocean hissed in protest so loudly that the three could hear it clearly, as the top waters turned to steam and rose in a thick fog. Brother Avelyn was strong indeed!

And probably dead, Siherton realized, though he was too shaken to make the point at that moment. If Avelyn had concentrated so much of his energy into the ruby, then likely he had let the serpentine shield slip. Then likely he was now a charred thing, drifting to the bottom of the harbor.

The three waited a long time, Jojonah growing ever more concerned, but Markwart resignedly saying, "A pity," many times, and Siherton seeming on the verge of a chuckle.

Then came a sound not so far below them, a deep breath as one might take after great exertion. They rushed to the edge and peered over, Siherton holding the diamond low, focusing its light downward to reveal a haggard-looking but very much alive Brother Avelyn, the malachite clenched tightly in one hand, his other hand working at the wall, pulling his nearly weightless body upward.

Avelyn's brown robes were tattered and dripping; he had the stench of burned hair about him.

He got near the tower's lip and Jojonah pulled him over.

"Some of the flames got through," a shivering Avelyn explained, bowing his head in shame, holding his arms wide to display the damage to his robe. "I had to let go of the amber's power briefly and dunk myself."

Only then did Jojonah realize how blue Avelyn's lips appeared. He looked sharply at Siherton, and when the master didn't respond; Jojonah snatched the diamond from him. The light went out for just a moment, then returned, brighter than ever. And warmer. Jojonah held the diamond close to Avelyn, and the young monk felt its warmth flowing into his aching, frozen form.

"I am sorry," Avelyn said to Father Abbot Markwart through chattering teeth. "I have failed." He held his hand out limply, returning the four stones.

Father Abbot Markwart burst out into the most heartfelt laughter Avelyn had ever heard. The cackling old man pocketed the four stories, then clenched his empty fist, and from a ring on his finger, set with a tiny diamond, he brought forth a light of his own. He motioned for Siherton to follow and started for the stairs.

Master Jojonah waited until the pair had gone, then lifted Avelyn's head so the young brother could look directly into his soft brown eyes. "You will be one of the chosen pair who go onto the island of Pimaninicuit," he said with all confidence.

He led Avelyn down from the tower then, to the warmth of the lower levels.

Avelyn undressed and wrapped a blanket about himself, then sat alone with his thoughts in front of a blazing fire. Though the trial of the four stones, the high wall, and the cold sea had exhausted him, he did not sleep that night.

It was warm; Elbryan felt that first, felt a soft, moist sensation gently touching all his skin. Gradually his consciousness came floating back to him, as if from a far distant place. He spent a long while lying very still, bathing in the comforting sensation, the warmth, holding that clear consciousness away. For the boy who had just witnessed such carnage and loss, the semiconscious state was preferable.

It wasn't until a memory of Dundalis, of his dead parents, slipped through his defenses, shocking away the quiet and the calm, that he opened his olive green eyes.

He was on a mossy bank, a gentle slope that put his head comfortably above his feet. A warm fog hung thick about him, caressing his body and dulling his senses. Visibility was but a few feet and Elbryan, shuffling up to his elbows, soon realized that sound traveled little farther than that, caught up and deadened in the tangible mist. He was in a forest, he understood — he was ankle deep in fallen leaves. Elbryan's instincts — something about the air, perhaps, the aroma told him this was not the slope leading out of Dundalis up to the ridgeline, the slope where he had met the . . .

The what? Elbryan wondered, having no explanation of who or what those delicate winged creatures might be.

Despite the bruises from his fights with the goblins, the minor wounds, and the discomfort of the night spent in the corner of his ruined house, the young man felt no pain, no soreness in his limbs. He sat up straight, then rolled to put his legs under him. Gradually he came up in a crouch, studying the area intently, trying to get some bearings on where he might be.

The forest was an old one, judging from the gnarled and twisted trunks of those nearby trees he could discern through the mist. The sun seemed a gray blur above him, a lighter spot in the sky. "West," Elbryan decided after studying it for a moment, his instincts, his internal directional sense, sorting things out.

The boy believed the sun to be in the west, halfway from noon to sunset.

He didn't have much time before the night settled around him. He stood up, but stayed low, feeling vulnerable despite the thick mist. His reasoning told him to get out of that fog so that he might survey the area, but his physical senses did not want him to leave the soothing mist.

He overruled the physical and started up the slope, thinking to get above the gray blanket. He moved quickly, stumbling — often and cursing himself silently for every stick snapping sound. He climbed within the fog for only a few minutes and came out of it so suddenly he nearly stumbled again from the shock. At the same moment that the air grew clear about him, strong winds buffeted him — not gusts but a continual blow. Elbryan looked down the slope curiously, just the few feet to the unmoving mist. It appeared to him as if the mist were somehow blocking, or at least escaping, the winds, but how could that be?

Elbryan's eyes widened with yet another unexplainable mystery as, he continued to survey the ascent before him, going up, up, up from his position, dwarfing him, making him feel totally insignificant and tiny. He knew that he was nowhere near Dundalis; this mountain was nothing like the gentle, tree-covered hills of his homeland. He was on the western face of but one mountain in a great, towering range, looking down at a mist-shrouded vale, oval-shaped and nestled between the many overlooking peaks. Not so far above him, Elbryan could see the snow on this mountain and on all the others, a whitecapping that the young man suspected might be perpetual.

He shook his head helplessly. Where in Corona was he? And how had he come to this place?

The young man's eyes opened even wider then, and he glanced all around frantically. "Am I dead?" he asked the wind.

No answer, no hint, just the murmur, an endless string of mysterious whispers.

"Father?" Elbryan cried, and he scrambled three steps to the right, as though that might make some difference. "Pony?"

No answer.

His heart was racing, blood pumping furiously. Soon he was gasping for breath in utter panic. He started to run, first left, then up, then, when that course proved too difficult, back to the right, all the while calling out for his father or mother or for anyone.

"You are not dead," came a sweet, melodic voice from behind.

Elbryan paused for a long while, catching his breath, composing himself.

Somehow he knew the speaker was not human, that no human voice could chime so sweetly, so perfectly.

Slowly, concentrating on his breathing more than anything else, Elbryan turned.

There stood one of the creatures he had seen in the glade, a bit shorter than he and probably no more than three-quarters his weight. Its limbs were incredibly slender, but they weren't bumpy and bony like Jilseponie's had been when she was much younger. This creature's limbs didn't look skinny, any more than did the supple branches of a bending willow. Nor did this creature, so tiny, seem weak. Far from it; there was a sureness, a fluid solidity to the creature that warned Elbryan this tiny foe would be more difficult than any of the goblins he had battled, perhaps more difficult even than the giant.

"Come back down where it is warmer," the creature bade Elbryan, "into the mists where the wind does not blow."

Elbryan looked back at the vale and realized for the first time that no treetops were poking through the gray canopy, as if all the trees had stopped at exactly that level. Elbryan had the distinct feeling the mist and the treetops were somehow connected.

"Come," said the creature. "You are not dead and are not in danger. The danger has passed."

Elbryan winced at the reference to the tragedy of Dundalis. The way the words were spoken, however plainly and without any apparent deception allowed Elbryan to relax somewhat. Instead of sizing up the diminutive creature as a potential enemy now, he regarded it in a different light. He noticed for the first time how delicate and beautiful this one seemed, with angular features perfectly sculpted and hair so golden that even Pony's thick, lustrous mane could sparkle no brighter. It was as if the being shone of its own accord, an inner light making the flowing hair glow and shimmer. The creature's eyes were no less spectacular, two golden stars, they seemed, bright with childish innocence, yet deep with wisdom.

The creature started down the slope but stopped at the very edge of the fog, realizing the young man was making no move to follow.

"Who are you?" came the obvious question.

The creature smiled disarmingly. "I am Belli'mar Juraviel," it answered honestly and motioned again toward the mist, even took another step down, so that its shins disappeared into the grayness.

"What are you?" Elbryan said with more confidence. He suspected the creature would confirm it was an elf, but he realized even such an honest and expected answer would give him little information, for he really didn't know, what an elf was.

The creature stopped again and turned back to regard him. "Do you know so little?"

Elbryan glared at Juraviel, in no mood for cryptic talk.

"The world is a lost place, I fear," Juraviel went on. "To think we have been forgotten in a mere century."

Elbryan's scowl melted away in curiosity.

"You really do not know?"

"Know what?" Elbryan snapped back defiantly.

"Of anything beyond your own race," Juraviel clarified.

"I know of goblins and of fomorian giants!" Elbryan insisted, his voice and his ire rising.

Juraviel had a response for that, a remark concerning the relative unpreparedness of Dundalis in the face of such knowledge. If this boy knew of the evil races, then why was his village so utterly ill equipped to deal with a simple raiding party? The elf politely kept the question to himself, though, understanding the wounds were too raw in this young one. "And do I fit into your knowledge of such creatures? Am I goblin or fomorian?" Juraviel asked calmly, that melodic voice alone destroying any possible comparisons to the croaking and growling monsters.