Wandering Lark (65 page)

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” Alaric asked. He glanced around, but saw no sign of the creature Sedar.

A large meaty hand motioned Alaric forward. He frowned and stepped closer.

“I see what is in you,” Master Fion said. “I have seen it all along. I know the burden you bear, a burden you would just as soon have never found. I know what has been stolen. What has been lost, and what could be gained.”

Alaric put a hand to his own chest and stepped back. “How can you possibly know?”

“Because I am the Elder you seek,” Master Fion said. “Or better yet, it is time for me to seek you.”

Alaric felt dizzy as something swirled in the back of his mind, stirring in the darkness like a bear awakened from a long sleep. The overwhelming scent of cinnamon burned in his nostrils. And the ring on his left hand grew cold as ice. His whole body was growing heavy, forcing him to sink to his knees.

Ronan?
he thought.

It was Ronan...or at least, it felt like Ronan, but the essence within Alaric had a new fury as well, and it clawed its way to the surface almost like a badger scrambling out of a muddy den. It was Ronan, and yet it was not the bard he had come so used to battling. It was something more, something stronger, something as ancient as time. The burn of demon essence was there as well.

“Help me,” he said, looking up at Fion.

“I cannot,” the Dvergar said and did not move. “The Balance forbids it.”

Alaric became aware of darkness pressing down on him now, pulling him apart and stealing his consciousness. He fought against it, determined to stay in control. But Ronan was proving strong. And before Alaric could shout a warning, he felt the bard’s essence charging through every nerve as though Alaric were the intruder in his own flesh.

And then, he felt his own hand reach and snatch at his chest. Flesh and cloth were torn away. Alaric gasped in surprise. Why was this happening? Why was there no blood?

“Too long!” he heard Ronan roar with his voice. “Too long have I dreamed of this moment. I was your first and most favorite, yet you destroyed my flesh, hid my bones, put me into darkness and left me there to mourn... But now...I will have my revenge!”

Alaric saw the dagger come out of his chest. A shard of something crystal-like...the thing he had taken in his dream...that Culann had taken from Talena. It was now in Alaric’s hand, and he was surging to his feet, raising it over his head. With a shout, he dove at Master Fion who did not move.

Alaric screamed inside himself.
Ronan! Don’t!

But Ronan was beyond hearing. His essence was in command, and Alaric was nothing more than a witness. Still shouting in Alaric’s voice, Ronan drove the point of the crystal at the Dvergar’s heart.

Yet the blow never fell. Alaric heard the scream of another—two others. One he recognized as Vagner. The other was the creature Sedar, and both of them descended on him from above. Demon essence washed everything in a bitterness. Sedar struck Alaric hard and fast from the side, and he knew he was going to have broken ribs from that. To his surprise, his body sprang upright again, brandishing the dagger and lunging at Sedar. Vagner moved in as though to keep them apart, but Ronan screamed Vagner’s True Name and drove the demon away with the blast of unbridled pain.

No, no, no!
Ronan, stop!

Alaric kept screaming it from inside himself, but for all his objections, Ronan refused to stop. The bard was once more driving Alaric towards Fion. Sedar moved into his path, and before Alaric could stop himself, he shoved the crystal dagger deep into the White Demon’s chest.

An unearthly howl filled the air. Sedar went down writhing in pain, but it was not the demon who screamed. It was Master Fion, and the sound that the Dvergar issued was the roar of thunder off the mountains, of water rushing down rivers, of infernos blazing in a hearth and wind in a gale and earth crashing down in a quake.

Alaric fell now, his body dropping, his arms going over his head as though to protect himself. The archway was filled with whiteness that expanded and billowed and grew. Fion looked much taller, and then the Dvergar began to shift, his stubby, broad figure becoming the slender wraith-like figure of a woman with long white hair who threw back her head and screamed.
It’s she!
he thought.
It’s the woman in the caverns!

The woman whose statue was in the tunnels. The one Ronan had called
She Who Sits At The Center Of All Things...
The White One.

Alaric wanted to watch what was happening, but Ronan was still in command, and he was ordering Alaric to scramble away as fast and furious as possible. The whiteness of the woman was expanding beyond the space of the arch. She stepped out of it, her opalescent eyes brimming as she knelt at Sedar’s side and drew the crystal dagger from the white demon’s chest.

Ronan forced Alaric to his feet as several guards came running and blocking the way. Among them came King Culann and Halathor, both of whom pushed their way to the front. Ronan did not stop. He crashed into the crowd of men, desperate to put as many of them between him and the woman as possible.

Perhaps it was because Ronan was so intent on escape that he did not stop Alaric from glancing back. The White One was putting one hand over Sedar’s wound, and from her hand issued a glow of golden light. Vagner was crawling back over, watching the scene intently, as though he cared what happened to the white demon.

And it was then that Alaric ran full tilt into a wall of air. He heard Ronan curse. Where the spell had come from, he could not say, but the power with which he hit it was enough to knock him flat on his back. It also knocked Ronan’s control of his flesh free. For moments, Alaric had no idea who was in charge because it hurt and he did not want to claim the body as his own. But then, he knew that control
was
his by the presence of the unrelenting pain. Carefully, Alaric crawled back onto his feet, staggering to keep his balance as dizziness threatened to overwhelm him.

He turned back in time to see Sedar once more lunge to its feet.
But how!
It was dying and...
Before he could think what it meant, the white demon dove at him, shrieking like a fury. It looked more male than female as it descended on him.

Then there was nothing more to think about because the weight of the creature crashed him to the ground. His head slammed the marble flagstones with excruciating pain, and then the world went black.

They made it back to Warrenvale
after a long walk. Gareth thought he would never be so happy to see that place again as he was now. He reminded himself that it had been years since he had carried Fenelon at all.

Hamlin Gobbler took one look at the three weary travelers who crawled out of his cellar and smirked.

“Will you be needing a room for the night?” the old Dvergar asked.

“I think we need to go on,” Fenelon said, and there was a disturbing plea to his gaze.

Gareth nodded. “Give us some food, and then we will be on our way.”

Hamlin Gobbler nodded. He had a young lad who looked more like one of the Hidden Folk go and fetch them soup and bread. And once they had their fill, they left.

“We should try to gate to Blue Oak,” Fenelon said.

Gareth was not sure he agreed that such a spell would work from here. Still, Fenelon’s urgency was becoming his own. So once they were outside the gates of Warrenvale, looking up at the great canvas of night stretching swatches of stars high above the steep cliffs, Gareth tried to draw power.

To his surprise, it came to him as though understanding his need. Fascinating, he thought. He would never have believed it possible before. But now there was power lending its essence to him, and he was not going to pass up that gift. He wove it into the making of a gate spell that would take them to the roots of Blue Oak.

The gate spat them out on the broad bit of ground near the giant tree. When Gareth looked up, he saw that the sky was still shadowed, but it was more like the latter part of the gloaming than the dark of night.
We might not be able to get a platform at this hour,
he pondered.

They wandered around to the main section of the tree. Fenelon was looking less worn and more anxious now. And indeed, there was no platform waiting. Only a couple of guards who shrugged and said that one could try the stairs if one were so inclined.

Gareth was not. “We’ll have to gate ourselves up,” he said, and selecting a private place to do so, he opened a gate to the platform where the inn he had used before was.

They stepped out onto the wooden streets. There were still people about, but no one noticed two men and a half-kin Dvergar in the shadows.

“So, where to now?” Gareth asked.

Fenelon frowned. “She’s not here,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Etienne is not at this inn,” Fenelon said. He looked as though he were concentrating mage senses elsewhere. “She’s in one of the lower inns on the Great Limb.”

“Rather expensive those places are,” Hobbler said.

“She’s a lady whose tastes can run to the better things in life,” Fenelon said. “Come on. I think I know which inn she will be in.”

“Good,” Gareth said. “Because I am getting tired of running all over the place. I want a bed and I want it now.”

“Didn’t you get any sleep?” Fenelon asked.

“Only after you fell asleep, but you woke me up when you were grumbling in your dreams... You never did tell me what you dreamed.”

“Does it matter?” Fenelon asked.

Gareth shrugged.

They made their way up and down various stairs until they reached the Great Limb, so named because it was the largest limb of the tree. More than one fancy inn housed guests here. Fenelon went straight to one called The Acorn Corner and stepped inside...

And froze.

“What’s wrong?” Gareth asked.

“Don’t you feel it?” Fenelon said.

Gareth barely stretched mage senses when a familiar essence assailed him. “How?”

Fenelon said nothing. He went bolting for the nearest stairs and racing up them. Gareth and Hobbler could do no more than follow.

Several flights up, Fenelon was standing before one of the doors. He looked at Gareth, then put his hand to the door and pushed it open.

“Well, well,” he called. “Someone having a party, and I was not invited... Hey...gently, my friends!”

Gareth bolted the last few feet and scrambled into the room.

A party was hardly this grim,
he thought as he glanced over the scene. Etienne and two young mageborn were tied and gagged and sitting in chairs. A number of battlemages filled the room as well, and two of them were grasping Fenelon’s arms, holding him before Turlough.

“Well, it is about time you all arrived,” the High Mage said. “So where is he?”

“Who?” Fenelon asked.

Turlough took a deep breath. “Oh, you know good and well whom I speak of,” he said. “Where’s your demon loving friend?”

“Gone,” Fenelon said.

“Gone?” Turlough glared and glanced over at the door as Gareth was edging into the room with Hobbler close behind. “What is that?”

“Oh, Turlough, have you not met Hobbler Halfkin?” Gareth asked.

Hobbler bowed nervously.

Turlough rolled his eyes. “And what is he doing here?” the High Mage asked.

“Well, he was trying to lead us to the place where we thought Alaric might be, but apparently, the way is blocked and there is no way we can get there, so we came back.”

Turlough shook his head. “Send him away. He is not part of this conspiracy. But the rest of you will go back to Dun Gealach with me to face the Council and answer for all the trouble you have caused...especially you, Fenelon! I told you that if I ever had a reason to get rid of you, I would use it.”

He turned and looked at his assistant Lorymer. “We will prepare to leave on the morrow,” he said. “Have them all bound and gagged so they cannot escape.”

Gareth turned in time to see Hobbler slip out the door before one of the battle mages put a hand on Gareth’s shoulder and guided him over to a chair.