The Banned And The Banished - Witch Fire Part 40

The cloud shrieked with tormented winds, than shrank, collapsing around the mul'gothra. As it closed around the beast, all its stored moisture changed from mist to water. As the mists cleared, Elena saw a huge bubble of water mold around the thras.h.i.+ng mul'gothra. The beast was drowning.

Elena somehow knew the Dark Lord had fled back to his hole buried under Blackhall. He had left this sh.e.l.l behind.The mul'gothra still fought its death as the magick sang inside Elena. Her power wanted more. More!

A part of her recognized the gasping creature as a mere tool of the Dark Lord, knew its death was nothing to bring such joy, but another part of her sang with the magick swimming in blue scintillations across the surface of the water.

Power still waited to be used, screamed in her ear with its need.

Elena heeded the call.

She stared at the drowning beast and clenched her fist tighter. Before her, the bubble of rainwater blew to ice, freezing the beast in its heart, like a fly caught in amber. The towering crystal of ice crashed and sank partly in the mud. Blue fire skated across its surface, a trace of power.

It sang so sweetly. It begged. More! Her blood thrilled with its song.

How could she deny it? It would be like denying her heart.

She tightened the muscles of her forearm until they bulged. Her fist now clenched so hard her nails dug into her palm. She did not feel the pain and squeezed tighter still.

Her smile grew ecstatic.

The wall of ice exploded. Like Er'ril's sword in the caves, the frozen beast inside shattered into thousands of pieces. Ice and beast blew away from her, leaving her untouched. The forest behind the beast did not fare so well. Trees were tumbled for a league into the forest. A jumble of ice boulders and sections of mul'gothra spread in a fan from where she stood.

Elena's fist fell open at the sight of such ma.s.sive destruction. She fell to her knees, then to her palms.

What had she done? Her mind pictured the struggling, gasping mul'gothra, argued that it was dangerous and had to be killed. And she knew this to be true. Such a beast would have ravaged her valley home.

Yet she also knew how she had felt as she lashed out-joyous with its dying, elated at its death.

Worst of all, as she stared at her hands, so white against the black mud, a part of her desperately craved the light of dawn-not for its warmth, but only for the sun's ability to ignite her power again.

Here she recognized the wit'ch in her, calling out. Elena could not dismiss this as the voice of her magick.

No. It was her own heart singing for the power.

But what about the woman who could not stop the tears from flowing down her cheeks at the death of a living creature, a misused tool killed so savagely by her hand? This was her, too.

Who was she?

What had she become?

Boots appeared in the mud before her eyes. Er'ril knelt down beside her. He lifted her chin with his fingers. His touch was warm on her skin. Her magick had left her so cold.

He pulled her to his chest and said no words.

There were none to heal her heart.

Elena pulled the deerskin parka tighter around her shoulders, trying to squeeze every pocket of frigid air from underneath the coat. The first clear morning since they had arrived three moons ago drew her fromthe home caves of Krai's clan. Snowy peaks, tinged a rosy hue by the dawn, reached for the blue sky.

The sight took her breath away in streams of white as the cold bit at her nose. She buried the lower half of her face in the furred collar of her parka.

A morning this clean made her wonder if all that had happened to her was nothing more than a bad dream. Here, she awoke to the sound of giggling children and the prattle of cookwives preparing a morning meal of warmed oats and raisins. Cinnamon spiced the air as well as the food. Pottery clinked with spoons. Voices raised to shout greetings, not warnings.

Yet Elena had only to walk a handful of steps to be reminded that this peaceful world was all an illusion.

In a side cave, Er'ril rested on a bed, wrapped in down-filled blankets. The bones of his face shone through his skin. He was a skeleton of a man now, his muscles wasted by a raging fever. The poisons had reached his heart at the same time the party had reached Krai's home. The swordsman had collapsed at the head of the pa.s.s.

If not for the broad back and strong legs of the og're Tol'chuk, Er'ril would not have even made it that far. Even the surviving horses-Krai's Rorshaf and her dear Mist- had been too exhausted to safely carry the injured man up the last of the treacherous mountain trails. But with Tol'chuk's help, the limp form of the plainsman finally reached Krai's home caves.

Not until an entire moon had pa.s.sed did his fever finally break. Only the steamed leaves boiling in pots, prepared with care by Nee'lahn, and Er'ril's own strong spirit kept death from his cave those long days.

Elena had spent many nights sitting beside his bed, mopping his brow with cool mineral waters from deep in the caves, listening to him moan and tangle his sheets. Once, he had opened his eyes straight at Elena and screamed, "The wit'ch will kill us all!" She had cried and run from the room, even though she could tell from his glazed eyes that he was deluded by the poisons in his veins. It had taken her many days before she could return to his cave.

This morning, after sneaking Mist a bit of dried apple, Elena had visited Er'ril and found him sitting up in bed, conversing with Krai. The mountain man's lower leg was still clamped between splints, but he managed to hobble through the caves with a crutch of hickory wood under his arm. The wolf had sat by Er'ril's bed, ears perked as the two men spoke. Elena still had trouble fathoming the animal as a shape-s.h.i.+fter and could not resist scratching him behind an ear and patting his head. She had done so as she entered the small cave. The wolf had wagged his tail, and Er'ril had offered her a smile. His color, though pale, had glowed with the warmth of life instead of the ashen shades of death. Returning strength had shone from his eyes.

Elena had mirrored his smile shyly, but now out in the crisp air, she smiled more fully. He would live.

Snow crunched under her boots as she climbed the ice-crusted trail that led from the sheltered caves to the windswept Pa.s.s of Spirits. Across the Teeth, the thin spires of smoke from the hearths of other clans of the mountain folk rose to greet the morning. Twelve in all, she counted as she wound up toward the pa.s.s.

It was these people who had offered them shelter and a place to hide. Winter had closed the pa.s.s with a mighty blizzard just as the party limped into the safety of the Teeth. They planned to weather out the bite of winter among Krai's clans: to let their trail grow cold to the dogs of the Gul'gotha, to let their wounds heal, to let time dull sharp memories that sapped spirit and muscle, to forget for a while and rest.

A long journey lay ahead, but none of them spoke of it. That was for another time-for when that b.l.o.o.d.y night finally lost its hold on their hearts and tongues. Now, they simply existed, basking in firelight and warm company. Few words were spoken.Only one decision had been made. When winter thawed, they would all go with Elena and Er'ril on the journey to A'loa Glen.

Each voiced a different reason: Meric to guard his king's bloodline, Nee'lahn to honor the words of a dying prophet, Krai to seek his vengeance, Mogweed and Fardale to break a curse, and Tol'chuk to answer the demands of a glowing stone.

Yet one unspoken reason lay in each heart-ties of blood now bound them all.

Elena let the sun melt this knowledge from her as she continued toward the Pa.s.s of Spirits. Though the cold burned her chest, she knew she must make this journey for all who had died in her name, to show them who she had become.

She would make it for her mother and father, for her aunt and uncle, and for a brother who had vanished off the streets of Winterfell.

She wiped a tear from her eye before it froze and continued up the steep path, wondering what had become of her brother Joach.

"Come here, boy," Greshym growled over his shoul-der as he threw open the wardrobe and unhooked the white robe inside.

The wit'ch's brother shambled over to him. Joach's eyes did not blink, and saliva foamed at the corner of his mouth. He stared at Greshym, awaiting his order, but no awareness glowed from his pupils. The spell of influence still held the boy in its thrall. Greshym stared sourly at the boy's sunken face and wasted figure. He kept forgetting to tell the boy to eat. He frowned. It would not do to let him die. The boy might yet prove useful.

Greshym slipped the white robe over his head and pulled its cowl lower over his face. He threw a blue sash across his shoulders to indicate he was under a vow of silence, not wis.h.i.+ng to be disturbed as he crossed the pa.s.sages to the Praetor's chamber. With a final tug on his robe, he checked the fall of his garments in a mirror, then frowned and lowered his head farther to keep his face deeper in shadows.

Satisfied, he turned to the door of his dormitory cell. "Follow," he ordered the boy as he swung the door open.

Joach shuffled two steps behind him as he entered the pa.s.sage. The hall was empty, but Greshym was careful to keep his face hooded. Too many eyes prowled these halls. The boy's naked face would raise no inquiring looks. He appeared as any other servant, maybe slightly more slack jawed. A dullard, they would suppose, and politely refrain from mentioning the boy.

Greshym followed a path well-known to him. He had no need to raise his head to check directions. He climbed the stairs near the kitchen and followed a dusty pa.s.sage to the other wing. Twisting and turning through the various halls, he entered the oldest section of the Edifice. Now the dust of crumbling stone and cracked mortar marked their steps' progress in puffs of ancient decay. Reaching the stairs to the western tower, named the Praetor's Spear after its lone occupant, Greshym stopped to clear dust from his nose, smearing the cuff of his white robe.

The boy b.u.mped to a stop at his heel. Mucus dripped from his nose.

"Stay," Greshym ordered the boy. Once satisfied that he was obeyed, Greshym hauled himself alone up the countless flights of stairs as they curved along the inside of the tower.

He pa.s.sed two guards along the way. They had been alerted of his,arrival by their master. Greshym didnot even wave a hand of acknowledgment as he huffed past them. He spied the deadness behind their eyes. Both were under a spell of control similar to the boy's, though of a delicacy and fine webbing beyond Greshym's skills. So subtle was the working that the guards themselves and the brothers of the Order were unaware of the master's touch among their own.

Greshym reached the last landing and approached the iron-bound oaken door. Two guards stood with sheathed swords. Their eyes did not move as he approached. Greshym raised his hand to rap on the wood, but before his knuckles could touch oak, the door swung inward on its own.

"Come," a voice from within ordered. Greshym cringed from the sound of the Praetor's voice-not in fear, but in simple recognition that the tone was the same as his own when he ordered the boy Joach. He thinks me nothing more than a servant.

Greshym stepped into the chamber of the Brotherhood's esteemed leader and saw the Praetor standing by the western window. Through the gla.s.s, the black finger of the tower's shadow pointed toward the distant coast. The Praetor stared beyond the sunken remains of the once proud city of A loa Glen and out to the sea, past the islands of the Archipelago that dotted the water like the backs of huge sea creatures. Greshym knew where he stared.

Greshym waited. The door closed behind him and latched shut. Now away from the prying eyes of his other brothers, Greshym pushed back the hood of his robe.

There were no secrets here.

Greshym stayed silent. The Praetor would speak when ready, so Greshym simply studied his stiff back.

Only a few individuals knew the ident.i.ty of the Praetor. As leader of the city and the Brotherhood, he had given up his name to don this cloak of responsibility. That had been a long time ago. None but Greshym still lived to remember that day.

The Praetor finally swung away from the window. His eyes were the same gray as his brother Er'ril's. "I feel her gaze," Shorkan said. "The wit'ch stares toward the Book."

"She will come here," Greshym said. "The Book calls her."

As Praetor Shorkan turned back to his vigil, wraiths of black energies caressed his skin and mocked the white robes of his station. "We must be ready for her. The Black Heart must have his wit'ch."

Elena rounded the last of the twisting path, her heart lighter as the pa.s.s spread wide before her. She stepped to the Pa.s.s of Spirits with a prayer of thanks on her lips. An errant gust tried to tug the hood from her face, but it quickly tired of its play and died away. The wind was calm this morning, but she knew that by evening it would howl through the Teeth as if pining the loss of the sun.

She studied the pa.s.s. Snow had fallen this last night, and not a single print marred the spread of virgin white. Elena regretted having to ruin such a sight with her plodding boot prints, but her goal this morning still beckoned. With a sigh that plumed into the air, she crossed into the pa.s.s and began the short march to its crest. A thin scree of ice caked the surface of snow, cracking in protest with each step. The scrunch filled her ears.

By the time she neared the highest point of the pa.s.s, she was forging through snow up to her knees. A sweat had built under her inner linens, and she knew that when she stopped it would rapidly chill her. Still she pushed on until she crested the tallest point of the pa.s.s.

She stopped and stared east. Short of breath, damp, and sure to grow cold, she did not regret the climb.The mountains opened up before her, and the full face of the sun bathed her in its radiance. The morning was so bright and clear that Elena swore the glint at the curve of the world was the Great Ocean itself.

The lands spread below her in sweeping vistas. She could see winter had reached its snowy grip far into the foothills and valleys. Yet, beyond that, among the distant plains, a hint of green glowed in the dawn, like a promise of spring.

Elena pulled off her rabbit-fur mittens and lifted her hands to the sunlight. They glowed in the dawn-one white as the snow, the other whorled with the reds of sunset.

It had taken her a long time after that foul night to finally renew. Though not injured like the others, Elena had sustained a deeper wound in that dark glade. She had needed this time of rest and contemplation to heal.

Because ever since that dark night when she had knelt in the mud in Er'ril's arms, a question had consumed her spirit: Who was she?

Elena stared at both hands now and raised them to the world.

Was she the red ofthe wit'ch or the whiteof the woman?

She now knew, and in the Pa.s.s of Spirits, she showed the world.

She touched her palms together, intertwining her fingers.

This is who I am.

And as Elena looks toward the distant sea beyond the horizon with her legion at her back, I must end this story.

My inkwells have run dry, my wrist aches, and I must find a vendor who is not too steep on his price of ink and scroll. So please let me end my story here. Let me rest. What I write next-the journey to the lost city-even I dread remembering.

So here I end the story.

The legion is formed, and the path is drawn.

The dark journey begins tomorrow.

Read on for a preview of

Wit'ch Storm

Book Two of The Banned and the Banished

Satisfied, Sy-wen tapped the seadragon Conch with the heel of her hand three times, signaling she was ready to go. A rumble shook the great beast as he sank under the waves, taking the girl with him.

After the rush of swirling bubbles cleared, Sy-wen stared in awe at the full sight of the creature she rode.

From nose to tail, Conch stretched longer than six men. "Dragon" was the Mer'ai word for the great beasts who shared their world under the waves, and though the seadragons had their own name for themselves, Sy-wen found her people's t.i.tle most fitting. Wings spread out to either side as Conch stretched his forelimbs wide. Gentle, powerful movements rippled through the wings as the dragon sailed through the sea, his snaking tail and clawed rear legs guiding them in a slow curve around the lee of island and heading toward the open waters.Rhythmic undulations swept Conch's body as they glided deeper. Schools of fish darted gracefully to either side, splashes of blues and greens. Below, rows of reefs marched under the wings of the dragon, dotted with the glowing yellow and blood-red blooms of anemones. Tall fronds of kelp waved as they pa.s.sed.