The Well of Wyrding (Revenant Wyrd Book 3) (5 page)

She didn’t know what to do. Angelica had never consciously worked her wyrd before. She decided to try for something like Joya had done and held her hands out. She closed her eyes determined and felt for the spark of wyrd within her, but could not feel anything.

All she needed was a spark of light, an orb, nothing more than a marble size. Angelica never realized how hard it was to produce even a modicum of wyrd when she didn’t know how. Joya and Porillon made it seem so easy, and the night that other force had taken over her body she had felt it course through her easily, but now, focusing on it, she couldn’t do anything.

She screwed up her face as she stared at her palms, hoping that the stigmatic white dots therein would spill forth some secret that might help her. They didn’t, and still she struggled, not realizing how intently she was watching her hands and how taut her body was becoming with the rising tension.

The gnome sighed and tapped a heavy, grimy foot on the ground. He crossed his arms and glared at her, and she was keenly aware of how hateful these little creatures were.

“Perhaps you were right,” he scoffed. “I guess you don’t have any wyrd.” Angelica knew that it was a taunt and didn’t give up; if anything she became more determined to produce even a whiff of smoke. With any luck she would not be free of the corruption and the cantankerous beast before her would choke as the tendril of smoke spun out of control. . . .

The gnome smiled, realizing how much his words had affected her.

Relax,
the voice of her aunt intruded on her as she scowled at her palms, which seemed to be spurning her every attempt at wyrding.

For several moments she struggled, clenching her eyes and straining for all she was worth to produce even a spark of wyrd, but she couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped finally. “I can’t control it.”

The gnome glared at her as if weighing the truth of her words. “You lie,” he reported. “I know you have wyrd in there,” he said, smacking her leg with his staff. “I must see a production of it before you are able to go anywhere!”

She sighed, defeated, and raised her hands again.

Now relax,
Pharoh said.
You are not trying to expel it by force as if it is a poison to your body. It’s a part of you, let it happen. See what you want to happen, and feel the wyrd responding to your desire.

Angelica closed her eyes and relaxed, muscle by muscle. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining the slithering heat that flowed through her body or if it was actually wyrd she was feeling, responding to her need and her aunt’s instructions. The heat spread through her until Angelica was filled up with it, and then it seemed to concentrate in her palms. Again, she was not sure whether she was imagining the pinpricks there from past experience, or if her palms were actually twitching. When the pain in the stigmata grew nearly unbearable, she gasped, knowing that she was producing something more than raw imagination.

“Today would be good,” the gnome said vehemently.

Without realizing how it happened, her desire and wyrd worked together, and a snap of purple light, like a weak form of lightning or maybe static, crackled at the gnome’s feet, and he danced away. When he finally stopped, he brushed his robes indignantly and glared at her all the harder, though he was obviously pleased with the feel of her wyrd.

Finally he looked away from her to Jovian. Jovian smirked a little. “The only wyrd I’ve ever done consisted of condemning a whole flock of Hobbedy’s Lanterns to the Otherworld.”

“Try something less drastic than,” the gnome grunted. “I do not fancy begging at the Black Gates tonight.”

Somehow Jovian’s wyrd responded to him, much unlike Angelica’s. However, it was not within his control. He closed his eyes and held up one hand, palm up, and tried to conjure a ball of light like the pink one still floating over Joya’s head.

His eyebrows knit together over his brilliant emerald eyes, and a gust of wind that none of them could feel rustled his curly blond hair, now matted and tangled from days on the road without washing.

The wind that was being produced around him, shifting his hair and damp clothes, would have been good enough, but then there was also a loud bang that reverberated through the surrounding trees and a red light so bright that it momentarily blinded everyone.

“Strong wyrd.” The gnome batted the air as if to ward off the light and glared at Jovian much as he had Angelica. “You need to learn control.”

The gnome turned to Maeven, grunted disdainfully and turned back.

“We have determined that you are not the dalua we seek. Continue on,” he said, and the gnomes began marshaling back into the woods.

“Wait!” Joya called. “The dalua you seek is following us.”

That stopped them, and together they conversed for a time. Finally the one who had accosted them before came back. “We hunt this dalua. You could be bait.”

Joya slapped her forehead, shaking her head at her stupidity.

“You would use three of the LaFaye blood to draw out the dalua?” Angelica asked, trying for her haughtiest air.

The gnome nodded. “Yep,” he said. “We figure that she is hunting you, so she wants you. We care not if you are LaFaye or fish, she wants you and we want her.”

“We have seen what she has done to sprites before,” Maeven told them. “It was not pretty.”

“You think to compare us with sprites?” There was laughter all around them from the other gnomes. “They are mere children. We are strong warriors of the earth.”

“Will we have your protection?” Jovian asked.

“Certainly,” the gnome said, but they were not sure if they could trust him.

“And we will be able to have control of our wyrd while being used as bait?” Joya asked.

“That is given that you can actually control your wyrd,” he said, peering at Angelica and Jovian. “You are now among the gnomes, your wyrd will act as normal.”

“Okay then, lead on.”
At least for now,
Joya thought to herself. She thought very little of being used as bait. They might be elementals, but she still could not get the imagine of hundreds of weeping children out of her mind, the sprites that Porillon had killed out of pure enjoyment before she had much need to do such a thing.

Joya knew before long they would have to escape, though she wasn’t sure how. If these were earth elementals, then escaping them would be a hard feat indeed, for it was said they could travel through the very earth itself instantly.

Where was Tegaris?

Pi was exhausted from training. It wasn’t an exhaustion of the muscles and the bones, like she had been used to in her life before the wyrders' academy, when she had helped her mother and father with their rice farm. No, this was an exhaustion of the mind, of the spirit. They were no longer able to practice wyrd because of the well, but studying all the complex motions and weavings was harder when you
couldn’t
practice them. At least for Pi. She learned better hands-on, walking through it with others as she wove the wyrd. She could read how to do something over and over again, but that wouldn’t help her.

By memory, she let her weary legs carry her up the spiral staircase from the basement of the wyrders academy in the Realm of Earth. If it wasn't for her intense hunger, she would have just gone to bed, but she had a few minutes left to grab something to eat before the cafeteria closed up for the evening.

It was difficult being in one of her last years at the academy; for some reason they wanted to cram so much information into her that she thought at any moment her head would erupt and paint the walls with her confusion and exhaustion.

She smiled at the thought.

"What are we laughing at?" Clara asked, her blonde head bouncing down the southern hall, joining Pi. They kissed quickly, and Pi wound her fingers through Clara's.

"Imagining my demise at the hands of information," Pi said, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear.

"That bad huh?" Clara asked.

"Just wait, you’re a novice now, but when you get to your last year, you will want to just quit."

"Do you want to quit?" Clara asked.

"No," Pi said with a sigh. "Sometimes I would like to."

They rounded the corner into the cafeteria just as the first blast rocked the foundations of the school. Pi stumbled and latched on to the doorway for support.

"What was that?" Clara asked, her blue eyes wild with fear. Pi shook her head.

Another blast hit the school, and there was more shaking. Pi cast a glance down the hallway as a shrouded figure stepped from the eastern hall and raised its hand. A volley of black wyrd blasted in a violent stream up the central tower of the academy. Other shrouded people joined the first figure, blasting wyrd up into the tower, and soon there was a deafening screech.

"Get back!" Flora commanded. Their pudgy teacher grabbed Pi and Clara and pushed them into a room. She locked the door behind them. They were in the northern hall.

"What's going on?" Pi asked, terrified.

There was no answer. Flora leaned into the door, her auburn hair creating a curtain, blocking Pi’s sight of what was going on outside. She tried pushing around Flora, but her teacher pushed her back. Pi stumbled into a desk, and it crashed loudly into the floor.

Clara, nerves stretched to near breaking by the excitement, let out a startled yip.

Flora shut the door quickly and silently. She leaned against it, closed her eyes and whispered a prayer.

“Are they caustics?” Pi asked, crawling toward her teacher, not daring to even stand.

Flora shook her head, and glanced over her shoulder as if any moment someone would come through the door.

“What are they?” Clara whispered, going to stand the desk back up, though it was obvious whoever it was in the hall meant to destroy the entire academy; one overturned desk wouldn’t mean a thing.

“I don’t know,” Flora said.

There was screaming outside the door, and lights outside the classroom window, fleeing toward the forest. A blast of wyrd and a sizzle of lightning flared just beyond the window, and Flora sank to the floor, not wanting to be seen.

Pi gasped as she saw the silhouettes of fellow students beyond the window fall to a smoldering heap on the ground. The figure that had attacked them turned, looked like he was nearing the window and then stopped, cocked his head, and dashed to the right.

“What’s going on?” Clara asked, tears streaming down her face. She crouched now beside Pi and Flora.

Flora just shook her head.

“Chy!” Pi said. “My brother’s out there, I have to go to him.”

She stood and made for a back door that connected one classroom to the next, away from Flora.

"I got him," a blond man said, stepping through the doorway just before Pi could barge through it. Devenstar pulled a young child behind him, and Pi nearly cried out in relief when she saw her brother Chy with Clara's brother.

"Good, we need to get out of here," Flora said.

"What’s going on?" Pi asked.

"The academy is being attacked," Flora said simply, as if they couldn’t see that. "Deven, do you see anything out that window?"

Deven peered out the window they had just seen the attack through. "Nothing," he shook his head.

"Alright, through the window you go," Flora said.

“But people were killed as they ran!” Clara protested as Devenstar slid the window open.

“Then we will have to make sure that doesn’t happen to us,” Flora whispered.

"Are they caustics?" Pi asked again.

The teacher shook her head that she didn't know. "Most likely."

She rushed them out the window, and into the dark of the night.

There was a point that Pi thought they would make it. Her heart was racing wildly, deafening out all other noise in a liquid pumping of blood through her head. She was breathing harder than she had ever breathed before, the cold night biting through the wool of her dress. She wasn’t prepared for this; she wasn’t prepared for living out of doors. Maybe they could just wait it out until the attack was over.

Lightning flashed by her ear, nearly hitting Flora, but instead splitting a tree in half not far from them.