The Ancient One (29 page)

Sadly, her eyes roamed across the great forest world stretching endlessly before her. In very little time all of it, including the sheer volcanic cone she could see rising in the distance, would fall under the domination of the Wicked One. And she had seen enough of his work to know that he would destroy whatever was not useful to him and devour the rest. Not only did that mean many individuals would die, from Laioni to her mother, from a certain Tinnani flute player to Fanona, stricken daughter of the Chieftain and Chieftess, it also meant that the forest itself, the living, breathing community that Kate was only beginning to comprehend, would ultimately perish. What that might mean for Lost Crater, and for the Hidden Forest deep within its walls, she shuddered to think. And the Ancient One: If Gashra had his way, it would not be there for Aunt Melanie to encounter five hundred years from now. The loggers’ work would have been accomplished long before their time.

She bent down to touch her toes, stretching the sore muscles of her legs and back. Then she straightened herself, again scanning Sanbu’s camp below. Gradually, a new feeling of resolve took hold. Maybe her own usefulness was not yet exhausted after all. If Sanbu lurked down there somewhere, perhaps she could use whatever energy she had left to inflict a small but painful sting in his, and therefore Gashra’s, hide. There was no reason left to be cautious. Her days were numbered just as surely as Fanona’s.

Yet she knew deep inside herself that such thinking was folly. What could she possibly do to harm Sanbu, let alone Gashra? At the first opportunity they would finish her off. Only the storm had granted her any protection, and its fury had now passed. She possessed no weapons, no warriors, no chance. Nothing would be stupider than to walk into a waiting ambush at Sanbu’s camp, except perhaps strolling unarmed into Gashra’s own lair. Even a ruse was impossible, for she had no way to fool them. She didn’t even have the one thing they still thought she had: the Stick of Fire.

Regretfully, she watched the white flames consuming the remains of the stick.
The one thing they still thought she had . . .

Suddenly an idea dawned. Possibly, just possibly, she could use Gashra’s desire to find the Fragment to trick him into giving up the Broken Touchstone. Such a plan, she realized, was more than risky. It was impossible. Almost certainly it would spell her own death. Yet if she had to die in this strange time and place, perhaps it would be better to die in pursuit of something important. Rather than wait passively for the enemy to strike her down, she would take the battle to the enemy. Her stomach churned uneasily, for she knew this meant searching not for Sanbu, nor for any other agents of Gashra—but for Gashra himself.

Kate swung her eyes toward the cloud-covered summit. Knowing she faced certain defeat somehow liberated her deepest reserves of courage. If through some miracle she could lure Gashra into parting with the Broken Touchstone, his power to damage the forest and all its inhabitants would shrink drastically. If she failed, they would be no worse off for her effort. Either way, she would not die without having lived with some purpose. For if she could not protect Aunt Melanie herself, at least she could try to protect the Halami girl who shared with her great-aunt more than just eye color. And if she could not save the Ancient One from destruction in her own time, at least she could try to save it in another.

She cast one more glance toward the sleeping form by the blazing coals. Laioni was safe for now, at least. Kate swallowed, knowing she would almost certainly never see her friend again. Then, from somewhere in her memory, she heard the words of the Stonehag Nyla:
At least you have a purpose, a calling, something you must do with your life. That is a blessing, a true blessing.

Grabbing her blue day pack, she slipped her arms through the straps. Then she stepped away from the overhang onto the icy rocks of the ridge, starting for the summit. She did not know whether she would succeed in her quest, but only that, like Babe Ruth, she would try.

XXVII:
A
L
ONE

Struggling to ascend the frosted ridge, Kate nearly slipped several times, tottering momentarily on the edge of an icy rock before regaining her balance. Even when her sneakers seemed firmly planted, they were dangerously unstable. Pausing once to catch her breath, she turned to discover a distinct trail of her own footprints across the whitened slope. If Sanbu or his warriors wanted to pursue her, they now would have no trouble. She pushed on, wishing she could simply rise into the air with a few beats of her wings like Kandeldandel, avoiding the laborious climb.

Gradually, she crossed beyond the reach of the hailstorm. The rocks, while still wet, no longer glistened with ice. Stepping more confidently, Kate continued to climb higher, stopping intermittently to check to the rear for any followers. As she gained altitude, the sweeping wind swelled steadily in volume. Soon it sounded as loud as Kahona Falls, roaring ceaselessly. At the same time, fog swirled about her again. She felt increasingly warm, though she assumed this feeling came from her own exertion.

Then, all at once, she discovered the source of both the sound and the heat. Scores of deep cracks ran down the ridge from the summit, reaching toward her like elongated fingers, shooting walls of steam skyward. A city of geysers confronted her, hissing incessantly. She halted, staring in amazement at this inferno. Reaching the summit meant finding a path between the roaring plumes of steam, if such a path even existed.

Biting her lip, she strode forward into a narrow channel between two of the long cracks. The rushing of steam filled her ears, just as the billowing clouds of white vapor filled the air above her head. On either side, dozens of fumaroles rose from the ground, painted brilliant shades of orange, rust, yellow, and blue. Acidic gases sputtered from small craters beside the steam vents, while murky pools bubbled and churned.

Perspiring from the heat, Kate started to run through this gauntlet of steaming crevasses. The deep cracks drew nearer together, and steam clouds smothered her completely. The air reeked of foul-smelling sulfur, burning her throat and scalding her eyes. She choked, gasping for air.

Stumbling forward, she finally reached what seemed to be a gap between the crevasses, a narrow space less than an arm’s length wide. She hesitated for an instant, not knowing what lay on the other side. Then she threw herself across the gap and fell to her knees on the rocks.

Panting, she drank in the cooler air, wiping her streaming eyes on her sweatshirt. Fog no longer swirled around her and she could see the darkening late-afternoon sky above the ridge. Behind, curling columns of seething gases poured out of the crevasses. Ahead, the summit loomed starkly, ringed with craggy cliffs and cinder cones.

The wind whipped across the desolate mountaintop, bitter cold against her face. No one but Gashra could feel at home in this tormented landscape. Everywhere, rocks bore the scars of excessive heat and force, whether singed until they turned black or baked until they burst apart. The ridge resembled the inside of a cauldron whose contents had long since boiled away, leaving behind a residue of incinerated rubble.

Rising to her feet, Kate spotted a small pool of clear water not far away. Unlike the other pools on the summit, it did not froth and bubble darkly. Instead, it stood perfectly still, clear as a crystal. Something about this pool called to Kate, beckoned to her softly and compellingly. She was too weak to resist its pull, too tired to remember the attraction of another enchanted pool, near the Circle of Stones.

How strange, she thought, to find a place of such beauty and purity amidst such devastation. If the rest of the mountaintop was designed to frighten away intruders, this transparent pool seemed a stunning exception. It sparkled invitingly, reflecting the slanting light of the setting sun.

She bent lower to examine the lovely little pool. The roaring steam vents still sounded in her ears, but she felt a renewed peacefulness gazing into this water. Although she hadn’t expected to see her reflection, her own face looked up at her, tinged with gold from the sunset. So clear and still was the water that she could even see the hazel green hue of her eyes. She turned her head, and the mirrorlike surface revealed the loose, haphazard knotting of her braid, as well as the caked dirt on her neck and lower jaw.

Captivated by the perfect image, Kate smiled in satisfaction. As she did, she watched her own lips part to reveal a row of pearly white teeth. Then, unaccountably, the teeth in the reflection started to darken, to take on the color of her tongue, until finally they disappeared. Her mouth, oddly misshapen, grew redder and redder, as if it overflowed with her own blood. Her eyes sank drastically inward and her cheekbones suddenly hollowed, stretching her face into ghoulish proportions. At the same time, all her hair fell away, while her nose hooked cruelly downward. A deep gash appeared, slashing across her face.

She cried out, putting her hands to her cheeks. Though she felt the living skin still there, she staggered backward, almost falling into the steaming crevasse behind her. She caught herself just before tumbling into the scalding gases. Then she ran past the clear pool, up the rock-strewn slope toward the summit. Like a terrified animal fleeing from a deadly predator, she ran without sense or direction, trying only to get as far away as possible.

At length, she leaned against a charred boulder twice her own height, panting for breath, her heart beating rapidly from both exertion and fright. So this was how Gashra welcomed his guests, she told herself, still seeing the haunted image. She shook her head, trying to dispel it forever. Throwing her braid over her shoulder, she drew herself up straight.
Well, he can’t scare me so easily. No way. I won’t let him.

Even as she felt that sudden surge of resolve, the sun dropped below the shoulder of the mountain. The sky grew instantly darker. Her confidence departed as well, dissolving into the starless night.

In the last lingering light, she noticed some deep indentations in the surface of the boulder. Backing away, she could see the design more clearly. It was a face, an enlarged version of the Halami warning stone in the Hidden Forest. The carved face glared at her, mouth open wide, exuding panic. Despite herself, Kate shivered at the sight.

Then, as the light grew still dimmer, the mouth began to move. At first the lips quivered ever so slightly. Then they drew closer together, before suddenly stretching apart in an effort to shout.

“You will die!” screamed the face on the rock. “You will die!”

Kate lurched backward, then tripped over a jagged rock just behind her. She fell on her back with a thud, then rolled to one side. Fighting to keep some semblance of calm in the deepening darkness, she crawled quickly away from the boulder. Glancing back at the carved face, she could no longer discern its outline, nor even see the boulder against the night sky. Nothing but blackness filled her eyes; nothing but wailing wind filled her ears. She held her breath, paralyzed, half expecting the very rocks beneath her hands to come alive.

Then she saw three rounded rocks beginning to gleam with a vague reddish light. Instinctively, she jumped to her feet, but some hypnotic power within the light forced her to halt and sit down again. The glow within the rocks deepened, turning them into pulsing points of luminous red. All at once a spindly column of wavering light started to rise slowly out of each. The three glowing red columns swayed and twirled, growing taller all the time, until they condensed into the shapes of thin, wispy women. Halami women. They wore loose stringy skirts, chest bibs, and hair tied into twin ropes by their shoulders, though they were no more solid than shredded clouds. Silently, the ghostly trio turned to face Kate, red eyes gleaming wrathfully. They released a chorus of ear-splitting screams that made her cover her ears and bury her head between her knees.

At length the screams ceased and she raised her head again. At that moment the three ghostly figures began dancing around her, baying and howling, encircling her in a ring of shimmering red light. As though reliving the agony of their own tortured deaths, the spirits wailed hideously, flailing their arms and tossing their heads wildly from side to side.

“Stop,” Kate cried in desperation. “Leave me alone!”

But the spirit-women did not stop. Long into the night, for hours that weighed on Kate like centuries, they wove their shrieking circle ever more tightly around her. At one point she picked up a rock and hurled it at one of them. It passed harmlessly through the vaporous head, landing in the darkened distance.

As the deathly dance wore on, Kate’s eyelids drooped heavily. She fought to keep them open, knowing she must remain alert, despite her exhaustion. Anything could happen if she fell asleep. She slapped herself on the cheek so hard it hurt. Then she continued to watch the writhing spirits, waiting for the dawn she feared might never come.

XXVIII:
I
N THE
L
AIR OF THE
W
ICKED
O
NE

The ground suddenly shook violently, jolting Kate awake. Rocks leaped into the air around her, and she could hear nothing but a deafening roar welling up from deep inside the mountain. She tried to stand, bracing herself against an oblong rock, but the terrible tremors knocked her back to her knees.

Then, with one final heave, the earth ceased shaking. Kate pushed herself slowly to her feet. She stood there, watching the first rays of dawn’s light touch the crest of the peak. Far away, she heard the rumble of a distant rock slide set off by the earthquake. She knew that Gashra must be preparing a great onslaught against those who resisted his control. And she also knew that, somehow, she had survived the night alone on his haunted mountain.

Feeling hungry, she thrust her hand into the leather pouch still tied around her waist. Cramming the remainder of the
minarni
into her mouth, she tasted again the deep history and knowledge of the Tinnanis, whose very existence now hung in the balance. The food, dry and chewy, renewed her strength, even though she wished she could find some water to wash it down. She was not about to drink from any of the pools on this mountainside.