Maylin's Gate (Book 3) (17 page)

Arber, flying as a desert hawk, screeched and dipped low on a path toward Mara’s high walls and the city gates.

She pitched right and followed on Arber’s tail gliding on an updraft of scorching desert wind.

A spirit shield flickered to life around her. Jeremy’s wrist came into view over her right wing before the knight cast a second shield around Arber.

“I’d rather not use the shields,” she said. “The less attention we draw to ourselves the better.”

“I don’t like it, Danielle,” Jeremy said. “What if we’re walking into a trap?”

“If my last trip to Mara was any indication, these people have far worse problems. Frightening them will only make matters worse.”

Jeremy sighed and the shields disappeared.

Outside Mara, a string of piled-high garbage mounds rose above the city walls.

She didn’t remember the refuse during her last visit, and her stomach sank. The city felt wrong.

Arber circled back and tucked inside her slipstream.

She rolled right avoiding the garbage heaps when the stench of death slammed into her.

Not garbage but dead human bodies. The plague had rolled through Mara and taken no prisoners.

Her throat constricted and she turned away from the piled dead.

Jeremy gagged and clutched her back feathers.

Acidic saliva swirled in her mouth. If she stopped she might pass out.

Mara’s gate stood closed and she glided over the wall past a line of crystal homes and empty merchant stalls.

In the city center, the temple’s deck, once teeming with dragons, sat empty.

She beat her wings faster passing above empty streets. Had anyone in the city survived? Would Brees and Keely be here? What if they’d come and gone? She might find Brees in the temple tending the sick.

She glanced behind her and loosed a short screech of warning before rolling left toward the temple.

Arber adjusted course and followed close behind.

City streets flashed past. Dead bodies appeared in back alleys and shallow, open graves.

She tore her gaze from the streets. A city like Mara, a desert crossroads, couldn’t have been a worse spot for the plague to run wild.

Arber climbed toward the temple's empty platform.

That she hadn’t seen any shaman or sorcerers came as no surprise. By now, they would’ve considered Mara a dead zone. The closed city gates meant no one could come in or out. A death sentence for Mara’s citizens. She adjusted course and followed Arber toward the platform.

The three-story temple, built from a rainbow of crystal, gleamed. The sun, sitting behind the temple, cast a shadow across Mara’s empty streets.

A flurry of feathers and talons hovered over the crystal platform and Arber touched down.

She came in beside him with wings pressed back and talons lowered.

Arber shifted into a forest cat and bounded toward the stairs descending into the temple.

Jeremy leaped from her back and ripped away the leather saddle strapped to her back.

She shifted into human form and cross the rooftop to the stairway.

An orb of spirit appeared in Jeremy’s hand and the knight held it at the ready.

Silence hung heavy in the stifling stairwell and nothing stirred from the floor below. A minute passed before Arber broke the silence.

The guardian shifted into human form. “I think we’re alone.”

This place, like the rest of Mara, left her feeling uneasy. The plague had ravaged the city faster than she believed possible. She crossed to the rooftop’s edge. With her hand blocking the sun she tracked Mara’s skyline. Nothing stirred.

“I don’t think Brees is here,” Jeremy said. “I don’t think anyone is here.”

“The houses may not be empty,” she said.

Arber’s gaze shifted sideways toward her. “Where does Brees live Danielle?”

She scanned the city streets below searching for familiar landmarks. The homes and businesses appeared identical. “I don’t remember which house is his, and nothing looks familiar.” She glanced toward the stairwell. “We should check the temple anyway. If someone is alive, they might be able to direct us.”

Shields flickered to life around her, Arber, and Jeremy. The shield knight took the lead down the crystal staircase with a spirit orb readied.

She held her tongue and let the shields go unchallenged. The city felt wholly wrong and she welcomed the protection. She slipped down the stairway after Jeremy.

The second floor came into view. An array of make-shift cots filled with lifeless bodies. At the room’s center, a railing ran around an open space that dropped to the ground floor.

She moved among the dead lying motionless in the cots.

A woman near her own age stared through hollow, glassy eyes. Red blistered pock marks covered the woman’s face and hands.

In the cot beside the woman, a middle-aged man with thin gray hair lay face down. An open rash spread across the man’s neck and scalp.

She turned her gaze away from the horror. Her stomach churned and she fought back tears. They brought this death to Obsith. As bad as any devastation Trace had dealt the Heartwood. No. This was worse by far. Her people could escape the forest. She owed these people a cure.

Tears flowed, unabated, and streamed down her cheeks. She buried her head in her hands and shook.

A strong arm slid around her shoulders.

She didn’t deserve comfort.

Arber’s voice came next, quiet and filled with compassion. “You couldn’t have known. We couldn’t have known.”

She shook her head and spoke through a web of fingers covering her face. “I should have known better.”

“Then we’ll fix it,” Arber said and pressed her close. “All of us. Together.”

She spoke through sobs. “How? We’ll bring the plague to any city or town we visit. Brees and Keely too. Our presence alone is murder.”

“Come now,” Arber said. “We’ll find that heartwood tree and grow enough medicine to cure everybody. You’ll see.”

She wiped the tears from her face and nodded.

“The stairs are over here,” Jeremy said. The knight took her hand and guided her past the procession of dead. Together they descended to the temple’s ground floor.

A broad circular pool filled with water stood without an attendant. Beyond the healing pool, an arched doorway led to the temple entrance.

She walked past the cleansing pool and beneath the archway into the room beyond.

Sunlight poured through the temple’s open door. Beside her, a sloped table made of crystal and sandstone stood against the wall. Jars of powders, dried grain, fruit, and salt-like tablets sat on a shelf above the shaman’s worktable.

Her gaze drifted to the tabletop and she froze.

A feather belonging to a red-tailed hawk sat atop the crystal table. Black ink covered its tip and a scrawled message appeared on the tabletop.

Her eyes locked on the hawk’s feather and her skin prickled.

Arber and Jeremy paused beside her, their gaze focused on the tabletop.

“That’s one of Keely’s feathers,” she said. “She used the red hawk form every day during our last trip to the desert.”

“Let’s see what she has to say,” Arber said and crossed to the table.

A bottle filled with deep-purple ink sat next to the hawk’s tail feather. Beside the bottle, a note appeared.

“That’s Keely’s handwriting,” she said.

The message read:

Danielle,

Please don’t follow us. Obsith is not safe for you.

I’m sorry.

“Just like Keely,” she said. “Straight to the point.”

Arber studied the message with brow furrowed. “She must have known we’d follow her.”

“Or they’ve seen us following them all along,” Jeremy said. “Maybe they didn’t want us to find them.”

“Sir Alcott told us that Jeremy needed to find his family.” She glanced toward the temple’s open door. “Someone in Mara must be alive who can help us.” She walked toward the temple door and gestured for Arber and Jeremy. “Come on.”

Jeremy and Arber followed her into the street.

She peered right and left, but nothing jogged her memory.

To her left, the dusty road curled around lavish two-story homes. Where the road turned, a crystal wagon filled with the dead sat abandoned.

She’d no doubt the workers who had loaded the wagon suffered the same fate as its occupants.

To her right, empty vendor stalls sat nestled between a tailor shop and a jeweler. Across the street stood a two-story traveler’s inn. Double doors, inlaid with ornate carvings, stood ajar. Nothing stirred inside the inn’s open windows and no sound came from within.

“Why don’t we search for Brees’s house from the air?” Jeremy said.

Arber stared along the avenue toward the wagon filled with dead bodies.

“No,” she said pushing away a strong desire to take Jeremy’s advice. In fact, she wanted to flee this place and never return. But, she couldn’t. She owed it to Mara’s citizens and everyone in the seven kingdoms who would suffer the same fate. “If someone is alive in one of these buildings, we can’t see them from the air.”

The air around her sizzled and her spirit shield doubled in strength.

She glanced at Jeremy and raised an eyebrow.

Jeremy shrugged. “It makes me feel better.”

A grim expression clouded Arber’s features. “Something doesn’t feel right about this place.”

“Could it have to do with the fact that we’re standing in a city filled with dead people?” Jeremy said.

She glared at Jeremy before turning to face Arber. “What do you mean?”

Arber’s brow furrowed. “Something familiar.” The guardian’s bald head glistened with sweat. “Evil.”

Her skin crawled. “It must be your imagination. It’s hard not to let your mind wander in a place like this.”

Arber half-grinned. “That must be it.”

She pointed down the street opposite the wagon. “I think it’s this way.” The thought of staring into more dead faces left her feeling queasy. “It feels like the right way to go.”

The trio walked past the empty inn and vendor stalls. Dead bodies littered the shops and alleyways. The road twisted and sloped downward. In the distance Mara’s east gate stood closed.

She recognized the distant gate and the road sloping upward to its right. “I came through that gate with Brees.”

Arber pointed east. “That one?”

She nodded and turned in a slow circle. A dozen yards ahead, a dusty lane leading north caught her eye. She took a few tentative steps forward and stopped in the intersection.

Six roads split from the intersection leading to every corner of Mara, but the road north called her.

“It’s coming back to me,” she said. “There’s an alley ahead and to the right that leads to Brees’s house.”

Arber offered a grim nod. Jeremy gazed into a nearby building's open second story window.

She eased ahead covering two city blocks without glancing to her side.

Three dead bodies, covered in desert cloth, lay face down on the sidewalk. The stench of death and decay filled the air, and she held her breath hurrying past.

A block ahead, between two buildings, the narrow entrance to an alley appeared.

“This is it, I’m sure of it.” Her pulse accelerated and she jogged ahead leaving Arber and Jeremy a dozen steps behind. She turned down the alley and froze.

A figure, clad in black robes, stood in the alley staring at her. Shadows, cast from a black hood, covered the figure’s face.

Despite the day’s heat, her flesh crawled. This creature didn’t belong here. She tried to speak but found her mouth unwilling to form words.

Three heartbeats passed. The figure never moved nor made any attempt to speak.

She glanced to her right.

Arber and Jeremy came up the street and stopped beside her.

Jeremy’s brow furrowed. “What’s wrong Danielle? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

She pointed down the alley and turned to face the black-clad figure.

The alley was empty.

Jeremy jogged along the alley and stopped halfway down. The knight turned in slow circles scanning the nearby buildings. “Did you see someone?”

Arber walked down the alley and paused at the far end before peering left then right.

Had she imagined the figure? How could a person vanish into thin air? She stood on rubbery legs and inhaled a long slow breath.

She walked forward and a scraggly voice came from the alley behind her.

“Leave Mara, witch,” the wretched voice said.

She screamed and shifted into a forest cat before turning on whoever stood behind her.

A gnarled woman, at least seventy seasons old, stood hunched in the alley leaning on a crystal cane. Thin gray hair peeked out from a burlap hood and a bony accusatory finger pointed down the alleyway. “I knew it was you,” the old woman said.