Storm Holt (The Prophecies of Zanufey Book 3) (15 page)

‘From far away. A place we call Maioria, but it is in the future and in a different galaxy. How far I do not know.’ He didn’t think about what he said, he only knew he had to speak the truth to this man and could not have spoken otherwise.

‘So you do not lie. You come from the future…’ Ayeth said, coming closer until he was only a few feet away. Freydel stared up into those dark blue eyes - eyes that glittered hungrily. The woman behind him came closer, equally intrigued. Freydel felt like a mouse cornered by cats.
 

Ayeth paused and his eyes widened. ‘I sense something. You have something of power on or within you. What is it? Show it to me.’

Freydel trembled. He felt sick and about to pass out, but he could not deny that commanding voice. He unwillingly reached into his pocket and drew out the orb. ‘It seeks its own protection. It brought me here through its own will.’

‘A crystal orb of power from the future…’ Ayeth said, his eyes wide with wonder. ‘We may have been denied access to the crystal pyramids, but this thing from the future could be what saves us.’

‘It
can
lead us to the future by its very energy. The One Source has brought it to us so we may be healed,’ the woman exclaimed and bent closer.

Ayeth stared into it to. ‘Something from the future… Can it have power over the past? With it I can break into the crystal pyramids. I know how to and I have the power such a thing might require. Let me feel its power.’ His long six-fingered hand reached towards the orb.
 

Freydel felt his hand unwillingly lift the orb towards him. ‘It is not yours to take,’ Freydel gasped, trying and failing to resist. The orb pulsed. He could feel anger flow from it. The power of Ayeth forced his hand forward whilst the power of the orb drew him back. He couldn’t breathe. He struggled to pull the orb back and at the same time maintain his grip on reality. The orb pulsed again, its energy juddering through his sick and weak body. His body was collapsing, taking his mind with it. The orb pulsed furiously. There came a jolting release.

‘Freydel,’ a voice called to him. He knew that voice, a friendly voice. He drifted towards it. ‘Freydel, come to me,’ the voice said, closer. He moved towards it, but it was hard, like trying to swim in quick sand.
 

‘I’m tired,’ he heard himself say.

‘I know, but it’s not far.’ The woman’s voice drifted around him. ‘Just a little farther.’ He struggled on. The darkness was brightening moment by moment, but nothing was revealed in the growing light. There was only the light and the voice in the distance. He fought forwards.
 

There came a rushing sound and then he was falling at an alarming speed. He flailed in the air and cried out. Wind rushed around him but there was nothing to see but light. A face appeared in front of him, the face of an Ancient. Yisufalni’s face.

‘Follow me,’ she said and smiled, but there was worry and pain in her eyes, and she moved with a certain weakness. She reached down, a cool hand grasped his. Then he fell forwards a long way and landed on something horribly hard.

Freydel opened his eyes and felt weaker than he had ever felt before. He tried to lift his arm and failed. All he could do was lie there breathing. It took a long time for his breath to slow. He opened his eyes and looked around. Surrounding him were the familiar stone chairs of the Wizards’ Circle. The stones were purple in the dusky light of evening.
 

‘I’m… alive?’ he blinked in disbelief.

Below and to the west of the Wizards’ Tower, the glittering waters of a river ran to meet the sea beyond the hills. The sky was dotted with clouds that were red in the setting sun, and the river was painted orange to create an exquisite sunset. Grassland and then forest extended either side of the river and continued for miles. It had been a long time since he’d last stood, or lain, in the Wizards’ Circle, and he’d forgotten how beautiful this secret place was so far east beyond the Known World.
 

The orb.
He frantically searched for it, felt its cool surface in his pocket and relaxed. His staff, sadly, was still gone, probably for good. That realisation did not sit easily with him. Baelthrom had something of his, it created a link between them, a link he did not want. But he was alive and he had the orb, that was all he cared about.

‘Oh great mother goddess…’ he wheezed and lay back, letting the tears of relief fall down his face. ‘I thought I was dead.’
I was dead, or dying.
He’d nearly lost the orb and his life, but thank the goddess he had not.
He breathed in the rich air of Maioria. It was heavy and sluggish, just like his body felt, and for a moment he missed the lightness of the astral planes.
But I never want to go back.

He winced and turned over onto his side, his aching body protested at the slightest movement. There, not two feet away, was a small curled up child dressed in a grubby white dress. She had her back to him and was not moving. He blinked in surprise and struggled to remember what had happened. He inched himself up onto his elbow and reached out to squeeze the girl’s shoulder. She groaned and moved under his touch, then turned to look at him. Her large pale eyes blinked back at him and her white skin seemed to glow in the dim light.

‘Arla,’ Freydel gasped. ‘How did you get here?’

Her eyes were wide and fearful. She spoke in stutters. ‘If I hadn’t reached you and led you back here, you would have died. That was him wasn’t it?’
 

Freydel stared at the child. He knew she had strange powers, but being so young he had never really thought much on it. He nodded slightly as he remembered Ayeth.
 

‘You saw him? Yes, I think so. Baelthrom before he fell. I’m certain the orb took me there to show me, maybe to somehow protect it from the Baelthrom we know now.’ Freydel frowned. He would need to write down everything he’d witnessed and ponder on it deeply.

‘He’s very powerful,’ Arla said. ‘He followed us almost all the way, but in the end he had to turn back. It was so close. I’m afraid that he’s seen me,’ Arla trailed off, her grown up words strange in a child’s voice.

‘You brought me here? How? I saw a woman, like an Ancient. She - we - were beyond the astral planes,’ he shook his head trying to clear the fog.

‘I’ve seen the ethereal planes, but to return to the body and remember what you saw is very hard,’ Arla said wisely, pushing herself to sit up.

Freydel stared at the child, trying to piece it together. ‘Arla how did you reach me? How did you bring me here? How did you escape Celene when Cirosa was taken?’ He wished he’d spent a lot more time with this strange child and her peculiar powers.

The girl looked at him and stammered. ‘I can go places, like when you dream. I knew you were in trouble. I was hiding near the temple when they came. I asked for help and… She came and I followed.’
 

Arla shrugged as if it were a normal thing. There was more to this story, Freydel was certain, but either the girl was hiding something or she couldn’t articulate what she wanted to say. She would not be the only one to talk to beings and ghosts beyond the physical world, many people had that gift.

‘You can trust me Arla, if there’s something I should know then you need to tell me.’

Arla nodded. ‘I couldn’t stay by the temple, they would have found me and…’ tears filled her eyes.

‘It’s all right,’ Freydel sighed. He pulled her into his arms as she cried, and rocked her gently. ‘We’re safe now. Was this woman you asked for help an Ancient? Is her name Yisufalni?’ Arla nodded.

Freydel stared off into the distant green hills.
The girl speaks to the Ancients. They may be ghosts but they have not left us completely, and with their great powers they are able to help even now.
The thought warmed his weary heart and he smiled, tears filling his eyes.
There is hope, always.
 

Arla stopped crying, and he held her away from him so he could look at her directly. ‘Arla, where we are now is a very secret and special place, you must never tell anyone about it. Baelthrom must never know where it is. Can you keep it a secret?’ Arla nodded again. ‘How you got here I do not understand, but only a true wizard can come here, and only then by invitation from a member of the Wizards’ Circle. No woman has been here since the orbs split the powers of the world. Since…’ Freydel frowned, there was something he should remember.
 

‘Our records speak of a priestess, a high priestess of the original holy order of the Great Goddess. She was also a princess and an Ancient,’ he blinked in surprise. ‘It could be her. I cannot be sure… I need to look at the records. But anyway, she was the last. No woman has been powerful enough to pass the Wizard’s Reckoning since the orbs were divided.’

Arla yawned and shivered.

‘Come, let’s go and get water from the river. We might find some blackberries as well, and a better place to sleep,’ Freydel said, feeling utterly spent.

EHKA circled high above the three riders, then swooped low and landed on the pommel of Issa’s saddle, making her jump.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked and stroked his feathers. She had not seen the bird since they’d entered Corsolon. The pressure in her head came on swiftly, drowning out the voices of Coronos and Asaph talking in front her. She closed her eyes and allowed Ehka’s message in.
 

The brightly lit day on the road to Corsolon dimmed and a different world took shape. A world lit by a sky of murky orange and green. She saw through Ehka’s eyes and he was flying. He came to land on a rocky hillside. It was covered in strange trees that were massive but stumpy. They had long thick branches that reached horizontally across the ground for the several yards.

Something moved in the shadows. Then a dreadful face appeared before her in a swirl of black. Red eyes - not unlike Baelthrom’s - glowed, illuminating a large flat face, squat upturned nose and a long wide mouth filled with inch-long fangs. The horrific thing’s bat-like ears twitched, and a blood red tongue whipped out to lick its grey lips.
Demon
. She shivered. She had never seen one, but she knew it was a demon. Only its grey face appeared out of the shadows, and somehow that was more terrifying than the whole of it appearing. If its face was as hideous as that then what did the rest of it look like?
 

The demon spoke in demonic and her soul shrank from it, but Ehka was not afraid, only curious of it. The demon lunged out of the shadows. Thick muscles bulged over its chest, huge hairless wings stretched wide and its clawed arm reached forward so fast it was a blur. She screamed as its claws touched her feathers, then the images flooded into her mind. It took her a while to realise that what she witnessed was Ehka giving the demon a message, a vision of the future. Her breathing came fast and shallow as she struggled to focus on what she was seeing.
 

An empty plain loomed so fast she could only make out a black spire of rock. The same spire she had seen after entering the sacred mound. There came a flash and then light blinded her. The wailing howl of a demon scoured her ears as she squinted into the light. A long thin spear formed and she blinked in surprise.
It’s that spear, the one in Zanufey’s hands and in the sacred mound.