Call of Sunteri (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 2) (35 page)

“This way,” Uncle calls, and we follow his voice blindly. I cling to Rian who creeps ahead of me, careful not to slip to his demise from the icy ledge. This is my worst nightmare. I try hard to put the thought of plummeting to my death out of my mind.

We creep together along the perilous mountain’s edge for what seems like hours. My fingers are as numb as my toes, and my cloak drags me down, heavy with ice and snow. Just when I’m about to lose hope, I look ahead to see Uncle and the others disappear into an opening in the cliff face. I slip into it after them, grateful for the reprieve from the harsh wind and snow.

There’s no time to rest and warm ourselves, though. The crevice we entered opens immediately to a spacious ice cavern that glitters with Flitt’s colorful light. It splashes over a face frozen within the walls, and at first I think it must be Valenor, but I’m mistaken.

The ice begins to crack with an eerie echo that booms through the cavern. The crack spreads and the ice wall shatters, sending glass-like shards shooting toward us. A quick word from Uncle and Rian throws a shield between our group and the shards, which strike it hard and clatter to the ground with a horrendous crash.

When the shards settle the face pushes outward, grisly and awkward. It was once a man, but his eyes are milky white and his mouth open in a wide red grimace. He stalks forward to strike at Uncle, who is at point, and Bryse charges forward to block the attack.

All around us the ice crackles and shatters, and I spin to see several more of the dead figures emerge from their frozen caskets. They growl with a fierce, cold fury as they drag themselves in our direction, striking out with claws and rusted, blunt weapons. One of them sets its sights on me.

He was young when he died, perhaps my age. His hair is long and blonde and glazed with ice. He lunges for me and I swing my sword and he falls to the ground without a sound. I know I’ve severed his head. I can’t bear to look.

“Necromancy,” Rian says with his back pressed against mine. “I’m not surprised.” Fire shoots from his palms, melting the ice in front of him, burning the dead men who struggle toward us. Between the group of us, the risen are barely a challenge. In fact, when the fight is through, Bryse and Cort look a little disappointed.

“Four,” Bryse mumbles to Cort.

“Two,” Cort shrugs.

“This way,” Mevyn calls from deeper within the cavern. We all follow, careful with our footing on the ice-coated stone.

The deeper we go into the mountainside, the more fiendish our foes become. We battle ice goblins with sharp teeth that drip poison and fury sprites who enrage us so that we can barely swing our weapons and hobnubs who confuse us and try to get us to turn away.

We creep into the winding depths until the only light is Flitt’s colorful beam emanating from my collar, and Mevyn’s golden glow streaming from Uncle’s robes. I keep close to Tib, who has his dagger out and ready. It glows with a greenish light that seems to turn his foes to stone when it meets its mark. He’s fought bravely until now, but I fear we still have far to go.

The shadows encroach on us as we continue into the darkness, stifling our vision, filling us with dread.

“Not much further now,” Mevyn whispers from his hiding place. “He’s here, just here in the next chamber.”

“Why should we listen to him?” Dacva calls from the back of the tunnel. “He’s done nothing but lead us into danger since we arrived.”

“Don’t be insolent, Dacva,” Donal hisses. “It’s unbecoming.”

“You’re unbecoming,” Dacva replies.

“Quiet, both of you,” Da says, “I’d sooner suffer those risen again than have to listen to your constant bickering.”

“All of you shut up,” Bryse growls. “I don’t need to hear it. I mean it, I’ll throw you down the mountain, every last one.”

“Try it, you great oaf,” Da says.

“Yeah, I’d like to see you find your way out.” Dacva says.

“Probably couldn’t find his way out of his own shirt,” Donal murmurs to Dacva.

“I heard that!” Bryse plows through half of us to get to the rear of the line where the clerics are catcalling and taunting him. As I watch in disbelief, my vision shifts oddly around them. Tendrils of shadows stretch across Dacva, Donal, and Bryse, creeping across their skin, seeping into their minds. Bryse raises his sword and readies to swing it at Donal, his friend, his guild mate. It’s not them. It’s the darkness. I try to think of a way to stop it.

I remember Stubs running through fields of grass and panting as I willed him to stop. I reach out to the shadowy tendrils with my thoughts. I imagine strings on them. Like inky puppets, I pull them away from my friends one by one and hold them in place. Bryse blinks. So do Dacva and my father and Donal.

“Don’t know what got into me,” Bryse says, shaking his head. Dacva looks horrified as he does the same.

“Me neither. I didn’t mean it,” he says.

“Course not,” Bryse says. He looks ahead to Cort, who’s just standing there watching. “Why didn’t you stop me?” he asks.

“I’m sick of it,” Cort sneers at Bryse. “Always being the one to keep your temper at bay. You need to be a man. Take responsibility for yourself. I’m through being your pacifier.”

I look closely and see more of the shadows. They creep over Cort, binding him, holding him in their sway. I concentrate on them and push them from him and he closes his eyes.

“Sorry,” he says. “I don’t...”

“Perhaps a song,” Mya whispers as Rian stares at me in disbelief. I’ve pulled the shadows away and they cling to my arms like a shroud, but they don’t affect me. I remember Uncle’s talisman. I’m sure that must be why. Mya’s soft music fills the passage with sweet echoes. The song soothes us all but angers the shadows, which swirl wickedly around me. They break free of my strings and combine into towering creatures that hover over us wickedly, plucking and poking and taunting.

There’s one shadow for each of us, and despite Mya’s song they have the upper hand. Half of our group sinks to their knees and drops their weapons to clutch their heads.

“
Shadow wraiths
,” Flitt sends to me. “
Don’t let them hold you.
” She shines her light brighter but the shadows aren’t affected.

They wrap themselves around my friends and family, binding them, seeping into their eyes and noses and mouths. Rian, Uncle, and I are unaffected. Tib stands watching in disbelief as he’s completely ignored by them. The others, though, all of them, lie helpless and writhing on the ice.

I try to concentrate on the one that holds Mum, imagining the strings and pulling them away, but it fights me. It’s too strong and I’m too unskilled in this magic. There’s nothing we can do. If I tried to stab them it would harm the people they’re holding, too.

I drop to my knees between my mother and father and rest a hand on each of them, but my talisman does nothing to protect them. Uncle and Rian try several spells, but nothing seems to work.

“We’re getting closer,” Mevyn whispers. “This is the last defense. Tib, the yellow.”

Desperately, I keep trying to move the wraiths away with my mind, but have no success. Beside me, Tib pulls a yellow vial from his bandolier and coats the blade of Rian’s dagger with it.

“Good, now, slowly. Carefully,” Mevyn whispers. The wraiths on Mum and Da are too occupied by their prey to notice Tib creeping up to them. He raises the blade and thrusts it. It takes every bit of my will to keep from blocking the attack aimed for my mother. It strikes the shadow, which screeches with the most ear-splitting, unholy sound. Immediately the others spring up. As the shadow on Mum is absorbed into the darkness, the rest of them charge Tib in a savage fury.

Mum and Da, Bryse and Cort, Mya, Donal, and Dacva all jump to their feet and retrieve their weapons to charge. They do little damage to the shadows that swirl around Tib, trying to strike him. The boy is somehow immune to them, though. As he stabs at the shadows with a fury, whispers fill the huddled space.

“Dreamstalker,” they say over and over in a chorus that makes the hair on my arms prickle. We stand watching in awe as Tib, with a courage and determination that surprises all of us, drives the wraiths away with nothing but a single dagger coated in yellow.

“Well done, Tib,” Mevyn says as the rest of us gather our wits. He turns to us.

“A little warning next time please, Mevyn,” Mya says with a shiver. We huddle together in the small passage, and Mum’s peace fills us. Mya hums softly, and her song soothes us.

“Of course,” Mevyn says. “My apologies, I didn’t expect the wraiths so soon. It isn’t far, now. Tib, I will ask you to do one last thing for me in this place. Clear the way for the others.” He nods into the darkness ahead. “I shall be beside you.”

“Sounds more like a command to me,” Flitt mumbles in my ear with annoyance. “He’s so bossy.”

“So will I,” I say to Tib. “I can’t do much, but I won’t let you go alone.”

When he looks up at me, his smile is filled with gratitude. He turns to Mevyn.

“I’m ready,” he says.

“I’m with you, too,” Rian says. He casts a shield that settles over us.

“Your spells will have little effect,” Mevyn says. “The shadows follow different rules.”

“I won’t leave Azi,” says Rian.

“We shall remain here,” Uncle says, “Until we have your word that the way is clear.”

“Very well, then,” Mevyn hovers just behind Tib’s shoulder. “Onward, Tib, into shadow.”
 

Tib

Ice. Cold. Creeping. Silence. Puffs of breath. Darkness.

My fingers are numb with the cold, but my feet are warm and sure on the ice. I could run in here. I would never fall. Right now, I’m not annoyed with Mevyn. I’m grateful for him. All of those warriors fell. They couldn’t fight. They couldn’t do anything, but I could. I saved them. The shadows couldn’t touch me. They didn’t even see me. It gives me courage. It makes me want to use my new dagger again.

A gift is a trick. As we sneak through the black, I think of what Rian said when he gave me the weapon. This will give you courage. It will give you strength and clarity. As soon as I took it I could feel the change. With my dagger and my yellow vial, I’m the only one who can beat these wraiths. Everyone is counting on me. Still, Nan’s words nag at me. I don’t know what the trick is, yet. I have to be careful. Keep an eye on that Mage.

Wraiths. Shadows. Stabbing. Screeching. Silence. Three. Five. Seven. Ten.

I keep count as they fall, just like Bryse and Cort always do. The wraiths keep coming, but they’re no match for me and my new dagger. I thrust and creep and the others follow me until Mevyn stops us at the edge of a deep chasm where the tunnel ends.

“There,” he says with awe. “There he is. My dear old friend, Valenor. Azaeli, you may tell the others the way is clear.”

I don’t know what I expected to see when I peer into the darkness. A wise old man in tattered robes, maybe. A Mage or even a Sorcerer trapped in a cage, reading old books. Or maybe a fairy like Mevyn or Crocus or Flitt. Not this, though. Never in my life would I have imagined this.

“Quiet. Mustn’t wake him yet.”

Yes, quiet. I stare in disbelief at the creature as my eyes adjust to even deeper darkness. At first he’s hard to see, black against black, but then I catch glimpses.

Long, leathery wings cracked with age and frosted with ice. Scales and claws and horns, and a twisted, broken tail. He’s cramped at the bottom of the chasm with no room to stretch or move, and even from this distance I can tell he’s enormous. Bigger than Cap’s ship. Bigger than Nessa’s manse.

Shadows stretch across his bony frame, pinning him. Binding him like they bound the others. He’s been asleep so long that the ice has crept up over his haunches. He’s alive, though. Once in a while I see him shiver.

“Carefully,” Mevyn whispers to the others as they approach. “Quietly.” Mya is the first to reach the edge. She clings to the wall and peers down.

“Is that?” she whispers.

“Mevyn,” Rian breathes the words, barely daring to make a sound. “You never told us Valenor was a dragon.”

“You never asked.” Mevyn whispers matter-of-factly.

“Typical,” Flitt smirks inside Azi’s collar. Mevyn goes to Gaethon and I can tell he’s saying something silently to the Mage. Gaethon nods and whispers a spell, and the ward of silence stretches out over all of us.

“There,” Mevyn says. “Now, Tib and I must get to the eye. I have things that I must show Valenor. You see, when Jacek took his mantle, with it came his most powerful memories. I share some of those memories.” He goes to the edge again and looks down at Valenor sadly. “At this time,” he says, “my friend doesn’t even known his own name.”

“That happened to me,” Azi says. “When Jacek held me in the Dreaming, I forgot many things. I didn’t know who I was. I even forgot…” she looks up at Rian and moves closer to him. Clings to his arm like she’s afraid he’ll disappear.

“We can’t all fit down there,” Mya says. “And the climb will be treacherous. What do you propose, Mevyn?”

“The Mages have a means to lower Tib and I, do they not?” Mevyn asks. Gaethon and Rian exchange worried glances.

“Indeed,” Gaethon says.

“Do you also have a way to send teams there?” Mevyn points across to an opening in the sheer wall of the chasm across from us, and another to the left. “We shall need coverage against any onslaught that might try to stop us from freeing him.”

“Yes, there are levitations and movement spells at our disposal.” Gaethon says.

“I don’t like it,” Benen says. “I think we should stick together.”

“Discuss it amongst yourselves,” Mevyn says. “I must have a private word with Tib.” He turns to me. “If you will allow it,” he says with a strange sort of humility.

I shrug, and he flies away from the others and beckons me to follow.

“I have things to show you, if you will let me do so,” he says. His tone is slightly urgent but somber, too. I feel his emotion leaking into me. He isn’t afraid. It’s something else. He’s prepared. He knows what he has to do. I focus on his strangely floating golden hair. Avoid his eyes as he goes on. “I could not have gotten this far without you. I owe you a great debt, Tib. Your courage has given you victory in many battles up until now.”

“No,” I say. “That was you. You and your vials and your knives.”

“Perhaps,” he says, “perhaps not.” He glances at the others and then turns back to me. “I have something to give you. It is the last thing I shall ask of you, Tib. Hold it for me. Keep it safe. When the time comes, return it. Do you agree?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t understand.” I remember all the times he asked me to trust him and then erased my memories. I take a little step back.

“You shall, when you see what it is. Please. It is a burden for me, and you are the only one I trust enough to ease it.”

I look at him, really look. He’s tired. Not bright like he was in Cerion after his meeting with the princess, or after Kythshire. His skin is paler. Gaethon helped him some, but his glow is fading. Something about him tells me this time is different. I trust my judgment. I nod slowly. With a little hesitation, I look into his golden eyes.

The memories rise and fall between us like waves in the ocean, like a sand storm spinning and billowing and fading again in streams of golden threads. With them come the titles that Mevyn listed in the Ring at Kythshire.

Mindspinner.
The image of a beautiful winged woman emerges from the golden threads. She raises her arms as they form from the light. Blows me a kiss. Flies into my chest. I feel a warmth as her light enters me. Fuller, somehow.

Weaver of Threads.
Another fairy’s image emerges from the threads. This one is a man with a long fabric draped over one arm and a needle and thread in his hand. He plunges the needle into the fabric and pulls the thread through, and then slowly he seeps into my chest just like the woman did.

WindCaller, Second to Cintigra, Second to Demsin, Warden of Sands, Spear-Bearer, Keeper of Songs, and Sworn Sage of the Known
all do the same. One by one they form from the golden light and show themselves to me. One by one they fly to me and let me hold them inside me. When Mevyn is through, he looks relieved and also very sad.

“Keep them close,” he says, “take care of them.”

I don’t know what to say. I wasn’t expecting that. Around us, everything is silent. I close my eyes and the golden light goes away. I look inside myself. Try to feel all of these fairies that I’m carrying now. I don’t feel anything, though. I wonder whether I’m supposed to. Maybe it went wrong.

“Keep them safe,” Mevyn says to me as Mya comes to our side.

“We’re ready,” she says. Rian has agreed to bring us down the chasm. Azi is coming with us, too. Gaethon will help the others into the openings. We decide to rest before we act. The Mages are taxed after the battle and the clerics insist, so we sit against the wall and wait. I spend the time going through my bandolier. My vials are almost empty, the yellow especially. When I show it to Mevyn, he waves a hand dismissively.

“You shan’t be needing them much longer, anyway,” he says. I wonder what he means as I peer down at the dragon and the massive shadows stretched across him, shackling him. What’s left in my vial would be enough for one of them. Maybe two.

“But,” I start, and he interrupts me.

“Have faith in yourself, Tib,” Mevyn says. “That is all you need.”

He goes to Rian, who’s poised at the edge of the opening. Gaethon is already moving the others across. Mya, Lisabella, Benen, and Dacva go together. He whispers a spell and they walk across thin air, like there’s an invisible bridge supporting them. Bryse, Cort, and Donal go next. Gaethon stays with them at the mouth of the tunnel.

“When you’re ready,” Mevyn says to Rian. His way is different. We have to hold onto him so he can float us down. I wrap my arms around his middle and Azi holds him around the shoulders. I watch the jagged wall slip past us as we float down. I could have climbed this. I wish I had. I don’t like depending on magic this way. He could stop his spell any time, and we could crash to the ground or worse, land on the dragon.

He doesn’t, though. He sees us safely to the bottom. Settles us into a small space by the dragon’s face.

Valenor’s head rests on his enormous cramped foot. The claws of his toes are as long as I am tall. Rian walks along his foot, studying the beast with interest. Azi looks a little pale. Inside her collar, Flitt peers out at the dragon with wide-eyed interest.

Azi comes to stand so close to me that our shoulders touch. She offers me a reassuring smile that’s very obviously forced. Together we take a few steps back and watch Mevyn, who flies up to hover by the slit of the sleeping dragon’s eye. He looks over his shoulder at us and nods when he’s certain we’re ready.

“
Keep your knives sheathed
,” a voice echoes in my mind. Not his. Someone else’s. A woman. Mindspinner, maybe.

“Old friend,” Mevyn says quietly. The eye snaps open, fiery red and savage. It narrows and the dragon’s snake-like neck shivers and shifts. The shadows hold him, though, and he can’t do anything other than growl and sneer and glare at Mevyn. I watch in awe as the fairy, the size of a gnat to the beast, flies closer. Mevyn steels himself even as Valenor struggles and thrashes beneath his bonds.

“Valenor,” he speaks the name with a commanding voice, and the dragon’s black slit of an iris contracts and expands. “Valenor,” Mevyn says again, this time soothingly. Affectionately.

Valenor’s great nostrils flare and huff and smoke. Azi puts her arm out in front of me. Guides me back until we’re pressed against the jagged rocks of the chasm wall. Rian doesn’t seem to notice. He’s crouched at the dragon’s foot. His eyes trace every scale, every line. Azi stares at him and he snaps his attention to her and looks at the smoke and rushes to our side.

Up above in one of the openings, someone shifts. Sends a cascade of rocks tumbling down the wall. The rocks rain over the dragon, pelting his frostbitten wings. Valenor scrabbles and screeches and lets out a great, fiery breath. It blasts the wall in front of him and flames billow back toward us. Rian casts a shield just in time to block the blaze.

“Mevyn!” I cry as the flames clear.

“
Quiet,”
the woman says again. I search the air around the eye for him, but he’s gone. Azi grips my shoulder. We watch together as the dragon settles again. Wait for Mevyn. He doesn’t appear.

“Mevyn,” I whisper.

“There,” Rian points and I see it. A glint of gold peeking out from behind an ink-black horn. Mevyn flies up and back to the eye again. It blinks as the dragon huffs impatiently.

“Valenor,” he says again. The name placates the dragon. There is a long silence as something about the creature shifts. He’s thinking. Remembering. Finally, he lowers his head. Bobs it into what can only be a nod of consent. We watch the golden strings lick out. They stream into the fire red eye, filling it. Strengthening it. Warming it. The ice that crawls up the sides of the beast melts into knee-deep pools so that Azi and Rian and I have to climb onto a pile of rocks to keep from getting soaked. The shadows remain, though. Holding him. Binding him.

The stream of memories flows between the fairy and the dragon for what feels like an hour. With each one, Mevyn seems smaller. Paler. Less impressive. By the time he’s through and they break from each other, he’s reduced to little more than he was at the roots. Skeletal. Shrunken. White. Nearly naked.

Valenor, on the other hand, is no longer bony and cracked. His muscles ripple beneath black, glistening scales. His eyes flash with clarity. He opens his mouth and I brace myself for the flames, but none come. Instead, he speaks.

“Mevyn, my friend. My confidant. My guide. I have waited for you these long years. You are my savior. Lifebringer.” He breathes a long sigh and closes his eyes. I feel his relief wash over all of us.

“Dreamstalker,” the dragon calls to me. Azi’s grip on my shoulder tightens, but Mevyn sinks down toward me and comes to rest on my forearm. He looks awful. Like he used to when we started out.

“What happened to you?” I ask him.

“What was meant to happen all along,” Mevyn says. “Do not concern yourself with me, Tib. Speak to Valenor. He shall explain everything.”

“Here, Mevyn,” Flitt pops up from Azi’s collar and darts to his side. She beams her light across him and he looks a little better, but he’s still white and thin and without his armor. I raise my arm to look closer at him.

“Mevyn,” I whisper. Sure, he’s been irritating. He’s been controlling. He’s made me do things. But now, seeing him back this way again makes me sad. Angry, even. Why did he have to go and do this? Why did Valenor need to be so greedy?