Griffin's Destiny (20 page)

“Oh, pet.” Sonoe’s voice caught and as tears filled her jade eyes, Ashinji felt a wave of uneasiness wash over him.

I have no proof she’s anything other than what she seems to be
, he thought.
All I’ve got is the message of my visions…Sonoe, surrounded by shadows and a cloud of menace. Though if she were truly evil, surely the others would have sensed it and never allowed her so close to Jelena.

“Now that you are finally here, we can go.” Taya snapped. “Give me the ring.” She thrust out her hand. Sonoe froze, and for an instant, Ashinji thought she might refuse, but then, she reached into a pouch at her waist and withdrew the White Griffin. She dropped it onto Taya’s palm without comment.

The princess tucked the ring into a fold of her sash, then turned toward the wall. Ashinji could not see how she did it, but a moment later, the panel swung open to reveal a short passageway of dressed stone and a steep staircase leading down. An exhalation of cold, musty air flowed around them. With a flick of her fingers, Taya conjured an orb of magelight and sent the glowing sphere bobbing ahead. Without looking back, she strode through the door to the staircase and started down.

“Quickly, children,” Amara urged as she followed after the princess.

Jelena clasped Ashinji’s hand and led him forward. “Come, Husband,” she said. “We have work to do.”

Taya, Amara, and the magelight had already disappeared around the first turn of the staircase. Gran and Sonoe stepped through onto the landing and the eldest Kirian closed the panel behind them, plunging the passage into darkness.

Ashinji could feel Sonoe’s presence at his back; while not exactly menacing, nonetheless, an uncomfortable tingle pricked the nape of his neck. He squeezed Jelena’s hand and felt her squeeze back as she started down, pulling him along in her wake.

The stairs spiraled through three turns and ended in another passage, this one made of rough-hewn stone. Taya and Amara already stood at the far end before a plain wooden door. As the others caught up, Taya whispered a single word and tapped the door with a forefinger. It swung open to reveal a small circular chamber. An elaborate pattern of lines had been carved into the hard-packed clay floor. Taya stood aside and indicated with a wave of her hand that they should all enter ahead of her. When everyone had gathered inside the little room, the princess spoke another word and the door shut with a soft thud. She then clapped her hands once and Ashinji started in surprise as a backwash of magical energy blew over him, setting every nerve afire for an instant.

“The door is now sealed against anyone or anything without the proper password,” Taya explained as she looked first at Jelena, then Ashinji. In the silvery glow of the magelight, the planes of her face stood out in sharp relief. “Before we go,” she continued, “I want to describe what we will encounter on the other side. Or, I should say, what I
think
we will encounter, for none of us here knows for sure.”

She glanced at her fellow Kirians before continuing.

“This portal is linked with at least two others we know of within the Black Tower. The one we seek lies closest to the center of the fortress. Nearby, we hope to find the main Spell Chamber—the place where the ancient Kirians worked their greatest magic—intact. This room is the safest place to perform the Ritual, though if we can’t reach it, or if it’s been destroyed, we can work anywhere within the fortress. Once we reach our destination, there is no turning back. We must either accomplish our task, or die trying.”

“We won’t fail, Aunt,” Jelena stated. She lifted her chin and added, “My daughter’s future depends on us.”

She looks so brave and determined
, Ashinji thought.
She’s not the least bit afraid, not anymore…Goddess, I’m the one who’s terrified! How am I going to do this? How will I make myself kill the woman I love?

The princess gestured to the center of the room. “Jelena, Ashinji, stand there in the middle of the sigil. We will position ourselves around you and I’ll take us through. It will feel like you are falling. Remain calm. The sensation won’t last long.”

As everyone took their places, Ashinji brushed Jelena’s consciousness with his, communicating not with words, but with the direct force of his love. She returned the mental caress, but did not look at him.

Taya spoke a single Word and the chamber vanished.

Ashinji’s stomach lurched as the floor dropped from under him. He stifled a yell as his body plunged through nothingness. A heartbeat later, he found himself fighting to keep his balance on an uneven surface, all the while struggling to hang onto Jelena. Total darkness surrounded them and the cold, like a quick punch to the gut, took his breath away, despite his heavy fur-lined coat and quilted breeches.

Amara cried out in pain and Ashinji’s heart slammed against his ribs. “Mother, what’s wrong?” he shouted.

Someone muttered an incantation, and an orb of magelight flared to life, revealing a confusing jumble. It took several heartbeats of staring before Ashinji could make sense of things.

The group had materialized on a slope of shattered rock, cascading from an unseen source above. It flowed through a ragged hole to a buckled floor of flagstones below. Amara had slipped and fallen, and now crouched in the loose scree, clutching her ankle.

“Mother!” Ashinji cried in alarm.

“It’s all right, Son!” Amara gasped. “I twisted my ankle, that’s all.” Her face looked ghost-pale in the silver light, wreathed about with the steam of her breath.

“Go help your mother, Ashi.” Jelena nodded and patted his arm.

“Can you walk, Sister?” Sonoe asked.

Is that genuine concern I hear in her voice
, Ashinji wondered, as he scrambled to help Amara, slipping his arm through hers and gently lifting her to her feet.

Amara grimaced as she put her full weight upon her injured ankle. “I’ll do well enough,” she declared. “Let’s just go.”

“The main Spell Chamber is supposed to lie at the end of a wide corridor, to the east of this portal,” Taya said, peering into the gloom. “The portal itself must be buried beneath all this rubble. That it still functions is a testament to the strength of the ancient Kirians.”

Ashinji took in their surroundings with horrified awe.

The amount of energy that had to have been unleashed to do such damage…
he thought.
I wouldn’t believe it if I weren’t standing here looking at this!

Ashinji pointed at the hole leading to the corridor below. “We’ll have to climb down there,” he said. “Do you think that’s the way to the Spell Chamber?”

“I believe so,” Taya replied.

“I’ll go first.” Ashinji looked over his shoulder at Gran. “I’ll need to borrow your magelight.”

“You can conjure your own magelight, Ashi,” Gran replied. “Just think about it,
will
it to be, and your Talent will transform your thought into substance.”

“This is no time for a magic lesson!” Sonoe snapped.

“Sonoe is right, Chiana,” Taya agreed, but before she could say any more, Ashinji had a small orb of light glowing on his palm. Neither as large nor as bright as those of the Kirians, it was magelight nonetheless, and he had done it just as Gran had said he could.

He cupped his hand and tossed the orb away from him as he would a game ball. It described a graceful arc and came to rest, hovering, just above the hole in the floor.

Despite the heavy layers of wool, leather, and fur between his skin and the air, Ashinji felt the bitter cold seeping into his flesh. He reached into the sleeve of his coat, withdrew a pair of thick leather gloves then pulled them on over fingers already numb with cold.

“Don’t come down until I say so,” he said as he carefully picked his way along the jumbled surface of broken slabs and loose debris.

Frost glittered like a crust of diamonds on the stones beneath his boots, but despite the treacherous footing, he made it to the corridor below without mishap. With a flick of his hand, he sent the tiny sphere of magelight spinning down the passage. The way appeared unobstructed, at least as far as the magelight could travel.

Cupping his hands to his mouth, he called up through the hole. “The passage is clear. Be careful where you put your feet. The stones are very slippery!” Sonoe scrambled through first, followed closely by Jelena. Gran came next, with Taya and Amara, who leaned heavily on the princess for support, bringing up the rear.

Ashinji stepped up to take his mother’s arm, but she waved him off.

“I don’t need your help, Son. I can walk on my own. Look to your wife.”

She’s deliberately downplaying her condition to reassure me, but what can I do?

His mother seemed determined to not add her own pain to the burdens her son already carried. With a sigh of resignation, Ashinji turned away and went to stand beside Jelena.

“Come sisters, we must hurry,” Taya urged. “Time is running short.”

“Yes, I can feel it, too,” Gran responded. She sent her own magelight bobbing down the corridor after Ashinji’s smaller one.

Ashinji met Jelena’s gaze. “Feel what?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.

“The Nameless One,” Sonoe replied. “He knows we are here.”

Ashinji glanced at the youngest Kirian, and for an instant, he thought he saw a tiny smile twitch her sensuous mouth. All of his instinct for danger raced along every nerve and without conscious thought, he had his dagger in his hand and leveled at her before he realized it.

Sonoe’s eyes gleamed in the semi-darkness. “What are you doing?” she whispered, taking a step backward.

Ashinji looked at the knife and then back at Sonoe. Slowly, he re-sheathed the weapon. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”

“Apology accepted.” Sonoe licked her lips, then added, “I know you’re afraid. We all are.” Despite her soothing tone, Ashinji still could not banish his unease. He found it impossible to erase from his mind the memory of that terrible vision he had, back when he had been a slave in Darguinia, of Sonoe reaching into Jelena’s throat and removing something.

“Follow me!” Taya commanded. She set off down the corridor at a brisk pace. Ashinji took Jelena’s hand and fell in behind the princess. Sonoe, Gran, and Amara walked abreast at their heels. The corridor stretched ahead of them, arrow straight. The floor had buckled in places and deep cracks scored the walls and ceiling, but the structural integrity of this part of the fortress appeared to have survived the monumental forces that had torn the rest of the complex apart.

They hurried along in silence with only the scuff of their boots on the flagstones to break the stillness. Ahead, Ashinji could see the magelights had stopped before what looked like a wall of blackness. As the group drew closer, the wall resolved itself into a massive stone doorframe. The twisted remnants of iron hinges hung in jagged shards from the sides. The doorway itself gaped like an empty black maw.

“The main Spell Chamber should be through this doorway. Pray that it’s still intact,” Taya said. The group approached with caution, but before Taya could step through the gap, Ashinji laid a hand on her arm to stop her.

“No, Princess. Let me go first.” Taya hesitated for a heartbeat, then nodded and stepped aside, allowing Ashinji to step over the threshold, his little magelight floating ahead.

He found himself standing in an eight-sided chamber, empty save for a large platform in its exact center. The chamber appeared to be fashioned of black stone. Deep cracks fissured the walls and rubble-strewn floor. Part of the ceiling had caved in, creating a pile of broken stone near the platform. A thick, unbroken layer of dust covered the floor and the top surface of the platform. Ashinji took a step forward and kicked up such a choking cloud, he had to fall back through the opening to the corridor outside.

“The…room’s pretty much…intact,” he gasped, then succumbed to a sneezing fit. Eyes watering, throat burning, he struggled to clear his lungs of the irritating dust.

Taya stepped forward to peer into the room. She withdrew, clicking her tongue in dismay. “We’ll need to clear out all that dust first, or none of us will be able to breathe.”

“I’ll do it,” Gran volunteered. The elder Kirian raised her right hand.

“Ashi, Jelena, stand away from the doors,” Amara instructed. Gran spoke three words and Ashinji felt the air around him beginning to stir. He pressed his back against the chilly stone, one arm looped protectively around Jelena’s waist.

A ghostly veil of dust swirled through the gap between the doors and flowed, serpentine-like, past Gran and down the corridor, disappearing into the darkness behind her. When she lowered her hand a few heartbeats later, Taya once more peered into the room, then looked over her shoulder at the others and nodded.

The princess slipped through the gap and crossed the chamber to the central platform. Gran’s spell had scoured the chamber clean. Not a speck of dust remained to dull the polished floor—black as the night sky during a new moon—beneath Ashinji’s boots.

Gran and Amara followed Taya to the platform, where they laid down their bundles, then opened them to reveal an assortment of magical paraphernalia: a small thurible, a chalice, beeswax tapers, a glass rod. Ashinji realized the slab must be an altar. Sonoe pulled a small pouch from her sash and paced clockwise around the altar, sprinkling the contents of the pouch on the floor to form a circular space whose boundaries consisted of a crystalline white powder.