Stones Unbound (The Magestone Chronicles Book 1) (22 page)

It turned to face Celia, now wary, now moving forward with a
limp.  She could hear Valena praying to her left, and began to prepare her next
spell as quick as possible - this varghul was now really angry and in a blood
rage.  Celia looked at the sky, noticing the first hints the sun would peek
over the horizon.  She also noted Salrissa and Hoyle moving up from behind the
creature.

Suddenly the beast sprung forward, just as Valena stepped up
beside Celia, throwing her hands up in front of herself.  The creature's mouth
open to bite, it looked like the two of them were both doomed, but the creature
was brought up short, running into a clear shield of force that Valena must
have called into being.  The creature stumbled back dazed and shook its head. 
At that moment Celia saw Salrissa run towards Hoyle and stepped into his cupped
his hands, which he used to hurl the assassin up onto the varghul's back. 
Salrissa ran along the stunned creature's back and sank two knives into the
soft spots on either side of the creature's neck armor.  The creature bucked,
throwing Salrissa to the side, where she managed to tumble to break her fall
and roll to safety. 

Celia took that opportunity to cast her Flare spell, causing
painfully bright sparkling lights to dance in front of the night-hunter's
eyes.  At the same moment, Hoyle took the opportunity to drive his rapier into
the same leg that Robart had already wounded.  The creature wailed again, shook
its head twice and ran limping into the woods in the direction from which it
came, crashing through the brush all stealth forgotten in its haste to flee.

Celia let out a breath she didn't realize she had been
holding.  The rest of the group formed up and moved to where Robart lay in the
underbrush, unconscious.  Valena knelt to tend to him as the rest watched the
bushes for the varghul, or anything else that might attack.  Celia noted that
the varghul's tail had ripped a gash across his chest, right through his chain
armor.  Valena's healing prayers sealed the wound quickly, but she suspected
that his armor was ruined beyond repair.

Hoyle looked around at the group, surprised that they were
not more injured.  Aside from Robart's serious injuries and the shoulder he himself
wrenched when he had to dive into the bushes, they were remarkably well off. 
However, he knew that couldn't last long.  He was a city boy at heart, who had
spent a summer working on an ocean trader as a deck hand when he was younger. 
So he knew a little about ships and a lot about the city, but absolutely
nothing about how to survive in the wilderness.  And it being spring, with
unpredictable days, and chilly nights, not to mention the creatures that lived
out here, he ventured that there were going to be a number of uncomfortable
days coming at them. 

Valena finished her prayers, her glowing hands healing the
wound across Robart's chest.  Robart sat up with a start, then groaned and lay
back down.

"Seven Hells that tail sure hurt." he said.  Quiet
laughter followed from the rest of the group as the tension of the encounter
left them.

"We had better get moving.  The smell of blood will
probably bring out some other animals to investigate."  He was only
guessing, but tried to say it with authority, so no one questioned him at this
point.  "I'm going to climb a tree and check out our best path.  Salrissa,
why don't you and Celia go back to the lake and fill the water skins she
brought out of the wreckage please?  Valena, stay here with Robart and makes
sure he's ready to go when we get back."  He then turned and walked into
the woods, opposite the side the varghul left, and tried to find a tall tree.

He managed to find a suitable tree about twenty paces from
the wreckage as the sun was rising, its leaves not yet budding in the chill
early spring air.  It had to be ten or twelve spans tall, with thick evenly
spaced branches that appeared easy to climb.  This proved true as he scaled the
tree with no more challenge than climbing a ladder.  Near the top, the branches
began to sway with his weight, but he was able to see in all directions.

They were in a ravine of sorts, maybe more of a valley,
between two arms of the mountain that contained the lake that had saved their
lives last night.  He could see the small forms of Salrissa and Celia at the
lake's edge filling the water skins.  Hoyle could see a small glimmer leading
from the lake which must be a river or creek of some sort.  To the northwest
was the main face of the mountain, ridges running on either side of them to the
north and south.  The valley opened up into the foothills to the southeast. 
Far to the southeast, past the foothills, he could see the plains of Goralon,
and imagined that he could see Karvesh.  However, in all directions all he
could see was unbroken forest, other than the clearing the wreckage had
created.  He knew they were in some serious trouble.

Climbing back down, Hoyle returned to the wreckage to find
everyone ready and waiting for him.

"So what's the plan?" Salrissa asked him as she
cleaned her knives with a clump of brown, dead grass.

"Yes, what did you see?" Celia added.

He summarized his survey of the surrounding area to the
group.  "I suggest that we either follow the stream from the lake, or make
it to the southern ridge." Hoyle offered as confidently as he could
manage.

"Why?" Robart asked with slight contempt.  Hoyle
noted that he had turned his chain shirt around as no slash was apparent on the
front.

"Why what?" he responded to the larger man.

"Why should we follow you or any suggestion you make? 
Who made you leader of this little group?"  Robart crossed his arms
stubbornly across his chest.

Hoyle was not surprised.  There had been a tension between
the two of them since they had stepped through the magegate.  Besides the fact
that Hoyle hated Robart for the torture he had received at his hand and did not
understand why he was on this mission, Robart had been walking on eggshells
around him the entire expedition. He sensed something like this might happen
sooner or later, but he didn't want to force this confrontation here. 
"Fine!  What do you suggest then?" he rebutted.

Valena moved up to Robart and put her hand on his arm. 
Robart leaned down and listened as she spoke quietly to him.  He shook his head
at something she said.  She spoke again, and finally he looked up at Hoyle, his
eyes ice.  "Alright, let's get ourselves to the ridge then."  He
gestured for Hoyle to lead the way.

---o---

They spent the day fighting through the thick woods, with
few words spoken between them.  They had started by following their trail back
to the lake, and then following the shoreline to the east, until it curled around
to the south.  Birds called and insects chirped in the mild spring air.  The
sun was high, and though mild, it was not warm.

  They stopped where the small river left the lake in a
steep cascade of rapids to have lunch.  They each only had a small amount of
rations with them, which they each ate in silence.  They followed the north
side of the river ravine most of the afternoon, fighting through the thick
underbrush, until the banks dropped down and leveled off enough for them to get
close to the river.  They ended up walking along the gravel at the river's edge
for most of the afternoon before finding a place to cross.

They managed to cross the river only getting partially wet,
and found a small ledge above the river on which to rest.  The sun was now close
to dropping behind the mountain to the west, and light had started waning when
they decided that they would have to stop and stay there on the ledge for the
night.

The ledge was located two spans above the riverbed, and had
a small overhang that created a protected area, and had restricted access.  A
few pine trees grew at one end of the ledge, but otherwise the ledge was
exposed to the ravine.  It would be somewhat defensible, and hard to reach for
most animals.  For the varghul, should it decide to come back, it was at
perfect head height.

Hoyle stood on the ledge as the others climbed up the steep
trail on their hands and knees, finding all the hand and footholds that Hoyle
had indicated as he climbed.  He looked at the clear sky above and was grateful
that it would not rain tonight, but it would be cold.

He turned to Celia, as Salrissa hoisted her the last few
feet onto the ledge.  "Can you get a fire started with your magic?"

Celia brushed off the dirt clinging to her robes from the
climb.  "Yes, if you find me some dry wood, it shouldn't be a problem to
get a fire started."

Hoyle leaned over the ledge and called out to Robart who was
still waiting to climb as he watched Valena ascend the slope.  "Robart,
can you start collecting some wood for a fire?" he asked as diplomatically
as he could.  "I'll be down to help in a moment."  He looked around
the ledge and gathered some of the larger rocks lying about and created a small
circle near the middle of the ledge.  Meanwhile Salrissa collected a few small,
dead pine branches of the trees at the end of the ledge, along with handfulls
of dried needles.  She piled them in the circle of stones.

Hoyle deftly leapt from the ledge in a flip and landed in
the gravel below.  Robart had gone down the river to the east, picking up the
wood deposited along the bank in the fall, so he went west stacking the sticks
and branches under one arm.

Soon thereafter, with some help from Celia's magic, they had
a small fire burning in the circle of stones.  There was just enough room for
all of them to sit on the ledge, as long as they did not mind being shoulder to
shoulder.  As they all brought out their rations Valena stopped them.

"Please hand your rations over to me for a
minute," Valena directed.

"Why?" Salrissa asked with a slight defensive tone
in her voice.

"You will see, but I assure you, I mean no harm."
was her reply.

Hoyle handed his remaining rations over to Valena with the
rest of the group, the dried jerky and hard tack bread barely edible fare.  He
watched as she collected it in the lap of her robe and completed a prayer to
the Goddess.  A blue glow enveloped the food for but an instant, and then
Valena handed it back to the rest of them.

"Now your food will be more edible, last longer, and
fill you up faster.  So, be careful not to eat more than a few bites, or you
will end up with stomach pains."  Valena lifted her own bread to her mouth
and took a small bite.  "We don't know how long it's going to take us to
get back to civilization, so I thought this would be best."

Hoyle bit into his jerky, surprised to find that it was soft
and pliable and tasted like the best steak he had ever eaten.  He felt the
energy returning to his body fairly rapidly.  He tried the bread next and found
it to be soft and flavourful, not the dry, crusty, flavorless dough it usually
was.  He nodded his thanks to Valena as he edged away from the group to the end
of the ledge obscured by trees.

"I'll take first watch." he offered, climbing up
onto a stone above the ledge near the trees as dusk was falling quickly in the
ravine.  He watched as the group settled back against the cliff face at the
back of the ledge, pulling their cloaks over them for warmth.

Celia stayed closer to the fire, and murmured something he
couldn't hear and threw some powder into the fire.  The fire flared briefly,
then settled down into a smaller, more constant flame.  She then reached into a
pocket of her robes and drew forth a pulsing, purple stone slightly smaller
than her fist.  It looked like a magestone - a magestone the size of the ones
on the magegates, and she had it in her pocket.

Hoyle listened to the night carefully as he watched her
caress the magestone and stare into its depths.  Finally, after many minutes,
she put it back in her pocket, wrapped herself in her cloak and settled in to
sleep.  He thought he could see tears on her cheek in the fire's light.

She was a mystery to Hoyle.  She seemed so naive and
trusting when he first met her what felt like ages ago, but was only but a
fortnight.  She seemed competent in her magic, but unsure of herself.  When he
really thought about it, he found that he really liked her, and was maybe even
attracted to her.  But he had Salrissa, though sometimes she was distant and
cold, but when he could get her to open up a little, the passion came forth
with almost a rage burning inside.  He was torn, but willing to let things play
out a little while before making any decisions.  Besides, he was not sure that
Celia even liked him.

Now with Robart... he
knew
Robart did not like him. 
And Hoyle sure as the Seven Hells were certainly vile, did not like Robart for
obvious reasons.  What he could not figure out is why Robart was with them on
this suicide mission for the Emperor. 
Had Robart done something wrong?  Was
this his punishment for letting the prisoners escape?  Or was he driven by
something else?

The decision to bandage Robart's legs during the prison
break was a spur of the moment decision, one he had not yet decided if he
regretted or not.  He had certainly made a choice when he did it, and it had
probably saved Hoyle's life on the Imperial Sky Citadel - at least
temporarily.  Now he had a chance to live that much longer, and that was as
much attributed to his skill and the skill of those around him, even if this
was meant as a means for the Emperor to get rid of them.  Whether they
succeeded or failed, there was no downside for Randramas.

Celia waited as the others settled down to sleep.  She could
hear Hoyle shifting on the rock at the end of the ledge, slightly above her. 
She reached into her pouch and brought out a powder, intoned the words to a
Lingering spell, then tossed the powder into the fire.  It flared briefly then
settled to an even flame.  The spell was similar to what Valena's prayer had
done to their food - it would allow the fire to burn slower, diminishing its
light, but not it's heat, and also allow it to burn the night through without
adding any additional wood.  If necessary, she could reverse the spell,
instantly putting out the fire if there was a need to.

She could feel the pull of the quafa'shilaar's presence in
her mind, as she had all day long as they traversed the bushes, and downed
trees, and thorns, and walking knee deep through the river.  She had had to
stop and remove a stone from her boot on more than one occasion.  But all
through the day, the quafa'shilaar was a separate distraction that she could
not remove.  Nor was she sure she wanted to.

She reached into her pocket and retrieved the glowing violet
stone.  She stared into it, caressing the stone in her hand.  She noted a small
crack down one side that she could not see, but only feel with her fingers. 
The stone was no longer smooth, but was that important?  She did not know.

She looked into the depths, and cast her thoughts forward,
feeling a falling feeling as the stone accepted her into itself.  She could
sense awareness, not of its surroundings, but more of a self awareness.  That
startled Celia.  When she had bonded with the azure magestone of her amulet,
she had felt no intelligence, no spark of awareness, just a small sense of the
power residing within.  Now, she could sense the power of this magestone, but
also an underlying need.  It seemed to want to help, to be of use, to have a
purpose to its existence.  Again, as these feelings rolled over her, she
gasped, shocked at what was happening.

The stone seemed to be alive!  She opened her thoughts
further to the stone, allowing it to see within her, to the very core of her
being.  It seemed hesitant at first, tentative to explore what she was
offering, possibly sensing her reluctance to share.  Eventually the stone
probed into those hidden recesses of her mind, forcing her to relive those
experiences over again - the memory of her father rejecting her for her desire
to join the Dar'Shilaar and casting her out, disowning her, her mother weeping
in the background; the excitement of being allowed to join the ranks of the
Dar'Shilaar; the joy in passing her exams and getting her own quafa'shilaar. 
The stone saw it all, delving deeper, causing emotions to well up within Celia
that she had bottled up so fiercely, so deep down, that she had never expected
to have to feel them again.  But the stone laid all to bear, but then finally
eased up sensing her discomfort.  She felt an acceptance from the stone, a soul
akin to hers, willing to be her partner, willing to help, to have a purpose, to
be an equal.  Celia was gladdened by the emotions returned by the stone -
acceptance, eagerness... and love?  The last caught her off guard; this was just
a stone, was it not?

Celia was physically and emotionally exhausted, her mind and
body craving sleep, so she put the stone away in her pocket, filing the
unanswered questions away for another time.  She wrapped her cloak around
herself and settled in against the cave wall, her head on Salrissa's shoulder.

---o---

The early morning sun fell fully on the little ledge, waking
Celia from a particularly confusing dream.  She had been flying high above the
land, birds scattering from her.  Swooping low, she could see wild horses and
cattle all flee her shadow.  But no matter what, she could not see the shape of
the shadow or the form she had taken in the dream.

She noted that she was the last to awaken, and stretched as
she sat up from the awkward position she had ended up in.  Her shoulders ached,
and when she tried to sit up, she found her legs stiff and sore from the
previous day's travels.  The fire still burned contentedly in the stone circle
as she moved closer to warm her hands.

"Neat trick that." Robart commented from the rock
Hoyle had been watching from last night, as he gestured to the fire.

"Thanks," she replied, dispelling the magic
keeping the fire burning.  It immediately turned from the burning logs to white
embers, falling into itself, the flames gone, but the heat still radiating from
it.

She noticed Salrissa on the gravel bank below doing some
stretching, while Valena sat beside her chewing her rations.  Celia pulled out
her own bread and took a mouthful.  Robart hopped down from the rock, walked
past the two women and slid more than walked down the steep incline to the
riverbank below.  He also did some light stretching, standing a ways behind Salrissa. 
Celia was pretty sure he was watching her every move in her tight leather armor
that emphasized more than it hid.

"Where is Hoyle?" she asked Valena quietly, as she
looked around, noticing his absence.

"I believe that he is scouting the area.  For what, I'm
not sure," Valena responded absently as she packed away the remains of her
trail rations.

Celia looked up from her rations as she took a bite from her
meat, its juices running down her chin, and saw Hoyle's silhouette appear from
the forest at the side of the ravine.  He moved towards them at a walk and
stopped near Salrissa.

"I found a game trail that seems to lead up the ravine
wall.  Hopefully that will get us to the ridge we saw yesterday," Hoyle
declared hopefully.  He turned and had a quiet conversation with Salrissa and
then moved to stand below the ledge and look up at her and Valena.  "Are
you ladies coming?" he asked with one eyebrow raised and a smirk on his
face.  "I for one do not want to spend any more time in this wilderness
than I have to."

She and Valena gathered up their things and made their way
carefully down the incline to the gravel bank, and followed the others as Hoyle
led the way towards the game trail he had apparently found.  After several
dozen paces he vanished under an overhanging tree, with Salrissa following, and
Robart waiting for Celia and Valena.  Celia noted the break in the underbrush
as she crouched under the tree, and started up the moderate incline through the
forest.

---o---

They followed what Celia assumed was a game trail for the
better part of the morning, climbing steadily up the ridge.  More accurately,
it was running more-or-less level, while the river and the ravine dropped below
them in a series of waterfalls and steep rapids.  Every so often, they found
gaps in the trees where they could see quite a distance; at times they thought
they could see the Trellin Hills far to the northeast, the northern limits of
the Kingdom of Goralon.

Birds sounded in the trees and squirrels chittered away
angrily at the five of them as they passed, interlopers into their territory. 
The calls of the odd animal, and the rustling of the underbrush along the
narrow trail all registered in Celia's subconscious, but her mind had turned
back to the exchange she had experienced last night with the quafa'shilaar. 
She did not understand what was happening. 
Why did it feel like the stone
was intelligent, possibly even sentient?  Was it why they were magical, or were
they intelligent because they were magical?  Or was this the only one that was
like this, was it unique?
  The questions were boundless and all running
through Celia's head like bugs scattering when the lights came on.  Which is
exactly what the answer felt like - a bug.  When she trained her thoughts
towards one question and worked through the logic, she felt the answer was
there, but hidden just out of reach.  She needed to do more research.

As the chilly spring morning went on, the sun climbed
higher, warming the air.  Eventually Celia had to remove her cloak, as the
hiking was causing her to sweat.  After several hours, they stopped for lunch. 
Celia took the time to eat a few bites of her refreshed trail rations and
pulled out her tome titled
Treatises on Modern Magic
and flipped to the
essay by Vicalas Ardasha which she had not yet had time to read, titled
Quafa'shilaar
and the Elements
.  She began to read the tome as the others took time to
rest or to scout the trail ahead.

A particular passage caught her eye early in the essay, and
she had to go back and read the whole paragraph again. 

There is speculation by some that the quafa'shilaar are but
a conduit of power from another realm or reality, possibly from the home of the
base elements themselves; Earth, Air, Fire & Water.  Others argue that the
stones themselves are the source of power, some element within them allowing
the crafters of spells to channel that energy.  Finally, others argue that the
stones are only a reagent, allowing spell crafters to channel the energy of
nature itself, depleting the world of its essence.  I believe that the truth
lies somewhere in between these three views. 

Upon examination of quafa'shilaar, I have experienced the
rare occasion when the stone itself seemed to be aware and able to communicate
in rudimentary fashion.  It is unfortunate that I was unable to retain that
stone for any length of time.  Further experimentation with a large sample
group of quafa'shilaar could not reproduce the effect in any but a few, and
usually only with a single person, never myself, other than the once.  With the
results inconclusive, further investigation is required.

The essay went on to describe other experiments attempting
to deduce the source of the power, more futile attempts at deeper
communication, and more complicated procedures Celia did not quite understand. 
The final line in the essay jumped out at her as important. 

Only the leader of The Seven, knows the process of creating quafa'shilaar,
the knowledge imparted by the revered Staff of Everilon as it is passed from
one leader to the next. 

Celia looked up as she finished the essay.  The others were
getting ready to continue their climb to the top of the ridge.  She looked up
at the slight incline, the terrain getting slightly steeper, but it appeared
that they were out of the forest proper, as the trees were more coniferous and
spaced farther apart with newly sprouting alpine grasses between.  She stood
and gathered her things, moving to join the others as they continued the hike. 
If she did not think about the sky skiff and the ensuing battle and crash that
brought them to this point, she could almost believe they were on a simple hike
through the foothills.

As they ascended the slope, and the climbing required less
of her concentration and hands, she slipped her left hand into her pocket and
caressed the violet quafa'shilaar.  At first she could feel no discernible
difference from the magestone on her amulet, the awareness that had overwhelmed
her last night not apparent.  She could still feel the connection in her mind,
being present whether she was touching the stone or not.  It actually unnerved
her, being subject to this force that she did not understand, and could not
control.

Paying little attention to the path, she willed the stone to
communicate as it had the night before.  Nothing happened.  She demanded it,
begged it, and requested it to communicate with her, but nothing happened. 
Suddenly, she bumped into Valena, who had stopped short in front of her.

Celia looked around to see all of them stopped, looking
forward from their vantage high atop the ridge into the valley below.  In the
fading light of early dusk brought by the shadow of the mountain to the west,
Celia could not see what they were looking at, so stepped up beside Hoyle.  She
gasped as she spied countless small campfires spread about the valley below,
shadows milling around them like ants.  Looking south and west, she could see
the silhouette that was the sky citadel hovering protectively over the pass two
valleys over.  Due to the higher ridge to their south, a sister to the one they
spent the past two days reaching, ascending, and were now standing upon, these
fires would be out of view from the sky citadel.

"Is that what I think it is?" Celia asked,
uncertain if she could possibly be correct.

Silence hung in the air for a moment before Hoyle
responded.  "That is the Goralonian Army."

"But what's it doing here?" Celia asked
dumbfounded.

"Preparing to invade." Robart supplied.

"That's crazy!  The sky citadel will crush them.  Won't
it?" she asked nervously.  She was not fond of the Empire or the Emperor
since he had sent them out here to die, but it had provided a safe place for Mahad'avor
for the last eight decades.  She had only lived in the Empire for the last five
years, and mainly sheltered within the floating walls of the sky citadel, but
it had become her only home.

"It should, but they know that," Hoyle responded,
pondering.  "There is something more going on here.  They must have a way
past it somehow..."  He trailed off as the sky grew slowly darker, and
stars began to appear in the sky, mirroring the campfires below.

"We should make camp," Salrissa offered.  "I
saw a cleft in the rock off the path a few hundred paces back.  It will shelter
our fire, and protect us from the wind."

Celia realized that Salrissa was right and that the wind was
beginning to get gusty.  And where they were standing was too exposed to those
down below, even if they were almost a league away, or more.  She followed as
their group backtracked to the slightly hidden depression in the rock,
surrounded by pine and fir trees.  They gathered a handful of dead branches,
started a small fire, and settled in for the night.  Celia excused herself to
visit the bushes to make water, and on her way back she cast some warning
spells up and down the trail.  Once back at the campground, she cast her Lingering
spell on the fire and curled up in her cloak and tried to go to sleep.