The Ancient One (28 page)

A clap of thunder exploded, and with it came the first splattering of sleet upon the rocks. Kate positioned herself on a flat, oblong stone and swung around to view the camp below. But heavy gray clouds now rolled across the ridge, and she could see nothing beyond the approaching storm.

As she turned back toward the high shoulders of the mountain, a sudden flash of lightning burst against the boulders just to her right. She leaped instinctively to the side and, in doing so, lost her footing. She tumbled with Laioni onto the rocks, her shout overwhelmed by a new pounding of thunder.

As she rolled to her knees, the dark clouds opened fully, showering the slope with a freezing downpour of sleet and hail. By the time she could crawl to Laioni’s side, hailstones dotted her twin ropes of black hair. It took all of Kate’s strength to lift her again. Standing unsteadily, she straightened her back against the frigid gusts of wind.

Another simultaneous blast of lightning and thunder crashed across the slope, nearly knocking her down again. In the wavering light she spied a shallow overhang of rock nearby. It looked barely big enough to cover the two of them, but she knew there was no other choice. Tottering across the slippery slope with the help of the walking stick, she carried Laioni to the overhang. Kneeling, she wedged Laioni into the deepest recess under the gray stone slab and slid herself, exhausted, beside her.

The hail gathered swiftly on the stones outside their shelter. Soon the rocky expanse of the ridge was transformed into a sheet of white ice. The air grew bitter cold, and Kate realized that she could see the puffs of her own breath. Laioni’s breathing, though, she could not see at all. Placing her hand against the Halami girl’s mouth, she felt just the barest hint of warmth, and that only at irregular intervals.

“Laioni,” she cried, shaking her friend by the shoulders. “Laioni, don’t die. Please don’t die.”

She laid her hand against Laioni’s leather bib, on the same spot where she felt a heart beating strongly not long before. “You promised,” she pleaded. “Remember? You promised.”

Tears brimmed in Kate’s eyes, even as she started to shiver from the cold. Feeling her fingers going numb, she thrust them under her armpits for warmth. Her neck and shoulders ached, both from Sanbu’s blows and from the weight of the burden they had carried so far up the rocky ridge. She examined the blood-soaked kerchief tied around Laioni’s thigh. The bleeding had halted at last, but that meant nothing if now she died from exposure to the elements.

Kate touched Laioni’s pale cheek with two throbbing fingers. To her shock, she discovered that the cheek felt even colder. As the wind whipped across the slope, driving the hail into wavelike drifts, she pulled off the day pack and removed her sweatshirt. Frantically, she tried to wrap it like a blanket around Laioni. Yet she knew it would do little to slow the deadly process. She remembered Aunt Melanie telling her the tragic story of a young couple, married not yet one week, who froze to death in a sudden storm on Brimstone Peak. Rescuers found them several days later, huddled together, inseparable in death as in life.

Laioni shivered all at once as if having a seizure, which caused her head to fall forward. Kate, herself shivering in her T-shirt, raised the heavy head again. She noticed once more how much this girl from another time looked like Aunt Melanie, even with her eyes closed. Was this how Laioni’s life would end? Frozen to death on the side of a mountain?

Kate bit her lip at the thought.
It’s so cold—cold. She’s going to d-die unless I can do something. Sh-she’s going to d-d-die.

The storm swirled across the ridge with increasing fury. Kate listened in vain for some slackening in the wintry wind. But the wind howled incessantly, stealing what flickering flame of life remained in the girl by her side.

Monga knew, thought Kate. He knew that someone’s death was near. But did he know it was Laioni’s? She struck her knee angrily with her fist. It’s too soon for her to die. Too soon!

She observed Laioni’s face, now frosted with hundreds of tiny hairs of ice. Her lips looked like gray-blue granite, her skin like shadowy storm clouds.
If only I could build a fire. Then at least she’d have a chance.
Glancing at her own sneakers, Kate wondered whether they might burn. No, too wet. And besides, she had no matches. She didn’t even have a pair of sticks to rub together, as Laioni had done in the forest.

Another series of shivers rattled Laioni. Kate moved still closer to her chilled body, enveloping her with her own bare arms. Her eyes, blurring with tears of pain and helplessness, fell to the walking stick. Frost partially covered the shaft, obscuring the symbols carved into the wood. The eyes of the handle stared icily back at her. So this is Laioni’s fate, she said to herself bitterly. This is what happens to She Who Follows the Owl. She wanted to learn the true meaning of her name, and it is Death.
If only I could make a fire. If only . . .

She blinked, focusing again on the stick. The Stick of Fire. What was it the Chieftess believed? Something to do with the name. Then she remembered:
It will burst into flames when so commanded by its rightful owner.

No, she told herself. Forget it. Forget the whole idea. Besides, the rightful owner was Aunt Melanie, and she was as far away as ever. Even if Kate herself were the rightful owner, burning the stick would throw away her sole chance of ever seeing her great-aunt again.

Yet, could it be that some small part of Aunt Melanie might reside right here in this Halami girl? Whether or not a traceable connection between them existed, Kate knew that wasn’t the point. She had begun to feel that all living things are linked, often in ways impossible to see. Perhaps in some mysterious way she herself was more connected than she could ever know to Laioni, somehow tied to an unknown people from an unremembered time.

She reached for the walking stick, then caught herself.
Hold fast to your stick of power,
the Chieftess said at their parting.
It is your only hope, and ours as well.
Her only hope of returning to her own time. Her only hope of helping Aunt Melanie. Her only hope of saving the Ancient One.

Filled with uncertainty, she touched the stick with the tip of one finger.
Do not do this lightly,
rang the voice of the Chieftess,
for it will destroy the stick and all its powers.

Again Laioni’s frame convulsed in a sudden shiver.

Kate seized the stick and brought it close to her face. “Burn,” she said in a low voice. “Burn if you can, Stick of Fire.”

Nothing happened. The icy wind screamed across the frigid ridge, mocking her act of desperation. Kate listened, then realizing the futility of her attempt, threw the stick to the ground. It clattered on the hail-coated rocks by her feet.

Then, so slowly as to be almost imperceptible, the yellow eyes of the handle began to glow strangely. A thin plume of smoke started to curl upward from the middle of the shaft, and the hailstones beneath the stick hissed in contact with some new source of heat. Soon, an ellipse of melting ice formed around the walking stick, while water dripped along the edges of the stones.

Kate watched with a mixture of hope and grief as the Stick of Fire ignited. With growing intensity, strange white flames flickered along its length, licking the wood eagerly, burning away the ancient images of the Tinnani Old Tongue. As fiercely as the blizzard blew beyond the overhang, it could not snuff out this crackling fire.

The walking stick burned vigorously, swelling in strength, until Kate’s feet and legs began to feel progressively warmer. She leaned Laioni closer, so that she would be warmed but not singed by the heat. So brilliant were the flames, as if their source were not a stick but a star, she could not look directly into them without scalding her eyes.

Gently, very gently, she lay Laioni’s head upon her shoulder so that she might hear her breathe above the continual wailing of the wind. And then she waited.

XXVI:
D
YING
F
LAMES

For several hours, the tempest raged. Hail and sleet surged across the mountainside. But for the circle of bare rock surrounding the overhang where a small fire burned brightly, the entire ridge wore a cloak of white ice. Kate, exhausted from the long trek and fierce battle, basked in the warmth of the flaming stick until at last she dropped off into a fitful sleep.

She woke with a start. Laioni’s head now lay on her lap, the Stick of Fire still burning at their feet. Her heart leaped to see the ruddiness returned to Laioni’s complexion. Touching her cheek gently, Kate felt again the warmth and life of her loyal friend. Amidst all that she had lost, all that she had left behind, at least this one thing had been saved.

She’s alive.
Kate savored the words, leaning her head back against the rock.
Laioni is alive.

Yes, her sober inner voice replied, but what good will it do? Laioni would survive the storm, and even now slumbered peacefully on her lap. Yet the powers of Gashra continued undiminished. Aided by the Broken Touchstone, he would surely press ahead with his plans to devour the forest and destroy any creatures who dared to stand in his way. Her sacrifice, quite probably, was in vain. Most likely Laioni was spared only to fall some other day.

At least, Kate assured herself, there was this silver lining: The Stick of Fire will not fall into the hands of Gashra. He can never use it to find the missing Fragment. He can never heal the Broken Touchstone, augmenting his already terrible power. That much, at least, Kate had denied him, even if she had denied herself in the process.

Looking into the dancing white flames, Kate marveled at how evenly and strongly the stick blazed, yet with only a tiny trace of smoke. Never had she seen any light so intense, except perhaps in the eyes of Nyla, smallest of the Stonehags. Even in its final act of self-destruction the stick displayed deep power. Although the shaft lay largely disintegrated, the coals burned on with vigor. She knew they would continue to flame for some time. The carved handle, though completely charred, burned more slowly than the rest, so that the head of Chieftain Solosing de Notnot, creator of the Stick of Fire, remained recognizable. That’s appropriate, thought Kate. The Chieftain’s image will be the last part of the stick reduced to cinders, his yellow eyes aglow to the very last.

She sighed, remembering the warm glow from the fireplace in Aunt Melanie’s living room. She would never know the comfortable feeling of that room again, its damp cedar smell, its many hideaways for Atha, its stockpile of quilts. She recognized that she would spend the rest of her days imagining but not tasting Aunt Melanie’s homemade spice tea. With everything else from her own time that she would miss—Mom and Dad, Cumberland, her favorite shortstop glove, baseball cards, extra-thick mocha shakes—nothing exceeded the longing she felt to see again the old cottage and the elflike woman who lived there. Most of all, she hoped that Aunt Melanie was safe, though doubt loomed larger than hope in her heart.

She surveyed the landscape beyond the overhang. The storm, its anger finally spent, was at last beginning to disperse. Scattered shafts of sunlight broke through the parting clouds and swept across the ridge, illuminating patches of ice-crusted rocks. The wind slackened, and she could now make out most of the mighty shoulder of the mountain, although the summit remained hidden by clouds.

Then she remembered. This was Gashra’s mountain. Somewhere up there beyond the vapors encircling the summit lay the very lair of the Wicked One. She glanced again at Laioni, sleeping deeply in the healing warmth of the Stick of Fire. Soon she would wake to find the stick destroyed, along with her people’s last hope of halting the growth of Gashra’s power. Perhaps she would resent Kate for valuing her life above everything else.

Whatever she might think, the deed was done. It could not be reversed. While the stick continued to burn vigorously, it moved inexorably closer to becoming nothing more than a heap of ashes, its power consumed, spent, used up.

The same could be said, Kate realized sadly, about her own brief life. With no hope left of returning to her own time, there was nothing left for her to do but to live out the rest of her days with the Halamis, waiting for the inevitable time when Gashra would crush them completely. In losing the walking stick she had lost any chance to do something significant in the struggle against him. Saving Laioni was the last act of real worth she would ever accomplish. And though it might not mean much in the grand scheme of things, she knew that she could not have done differently.

Feeling the aching stiffness in her back, Kate decided to stand. Carefully, she slid her legs out from under Laioni, laying her head gently upon the flat stone. The girl snorted and her arm twitched as if she were about to wake up, but soon she drifted back into slumber.

Slowly, Kate rose to her feet. She stepped around the crackling fire and away from the overhanging rock that had shielded them from the storm. Out of reach from the heat of the fire, she felt the brush of brisk wind against her chest. She grabbed her green sweatshirt, which now lay on the rocks by Laioni’s side, and pulled it on. Then, cautiously, she crept around the side of the rock and peered at Sanbu’s camp a few hundred feet below. She saw no sign of any life there.

Questions tugged at her mind. Had Monga survived the attack? His bravery was so much bigger than his body, yet courage alone was no match for Sanbu’s strength. If indeed he lived, did that mean Sanbu did not? That the little dog had not followed her trail, had not found his way to Laioni’s side during the storm, worried Kate deeply. She wondered for the first time whether the death he had foreseen was in fact his own. And what of Jody? Despite himself, the boy from her own time had begun to win her grudging respect, if not her friendship. And Kandeldandel? What she would give right now to hear the soothing strains of his owl-like flute, or to see that mischievous grin again. She dreaded the thought that he might have been injured or that he was now, like Arc, a lifeless bundle of feathers.