The Dreaming Hunt (6 page)

Raina moaned and fell to her knees as a third and even more frightening image came into focus at the very edges of Will's ability to see it. The figure was large and also cloaked all in black. But this one carried a silver-bladed scythe mounted on a black pole nearly as tall as the being himself. He seemed to be part of the infinite darkness Will had glimpsed, a creature made of the very essence of that sucking void. Of death.
Reaper
.

Will had heard legends of such creatures but never dreamed they actually existed. He'd thought they were made up to scare children into staying abed at night. Surely he, of all people, ought to know by now that the old myths were based more in fact than most people knew. Nonetheless, he was shocked to his core by the reaper's appearance.

“Help me,” Rosana muttered at him as she knelt beside Raina.

Will reached down and grasped both girls by a hand to haul them upright. But as he did, it was as if a magical circuit of some kind had been completed. Magic zinged between all three of them, greater than any of them individually. The disk affixed to his chest seared his skin as if it would burn a hole in him. Rosana and Raina reached for the wood piece simultaneously. How did they know it burned him?

Rosana's hand got there first, and Raina's landed on top of the gypsy's. A wave of healing poured into him, which was passing strange since normal healing had little effect on him these days.

Overhead, an ominous sound started, commencing as a low rending noise and crescendoing into a mighty crack of sound. Anyone forest-born knew it for the splitting of wood. Will looked up quickly, startled, in time to see the great, central oaken beam supporting the ceiling of the Heart common room open a great crack down its length to the accompaniment of that awful rending noise. It was as if the brief collision of worlds had proved too much for the mighty beam.

Will looked away, back in the direction of the reaper, but the great black being had vanished, along with all the otherworldly apparitions. The common room was just a room once again.

The Royal Order of the Sun knights alternated between looking around the room frantically for otherworldly attackers and casting doubtful stares upward at the now split beam.

“I thought you were not supposed to cast common magic inside a ritual circle,” Will muttered low to the girls.
They
hadn't caused the beam to fail because of something they'd done, had they?

“We didn't cast any magic just now,” Rosana replied, startled.

And yet, he felt invigorated. Healthy. Exactly as if he
had
been healed. “You did not heal me when you two laid your hands on me?”

“No,” both healers replied simultaneously.

Frowning, he rose to his full height, and the girls' hands fell away from his chest. Something had definitely happened when they both touched Bloodroot's disk.

Someone brought a ladder, and one of the Royal Order knights climbed up to the cracked beam to take a closer look at it. Apparently, he was a trained combat engineer. The three knights put their heads together to confer about repairs to the building.

“Where did that creature go?” one of the Royal Order of the Sun guardians demanded. He and his companions brandished their swords in the general area of where the reaper had briefly appeared.

“He is still there,” Raina answered tiredly. “You just cannot see nor touch him.”

“Where?” the guard demanded.

“Beyond this plane. In the Void,” she replied. “He is always there. This building is a nexus where souls frequently leave our plane to cross over into his.”

“How come we could see him just now?” the guardian demanded.

Lenora was the one who answered thoughtfully. “Some great disruption in the fabric of life in Dupree has torn it a little. The tear allowed us a glimpse beyond the Veil, into the Void, before it was repaired. Raina, you and I have been pulling large amounts of spiritual magic from that web of life for over an hour. We may have been the catalyst for those … visions.”

Will sincerely hoped that was all they had been. Just hallucinations. But he just as sincerely doubted that was the case.

“Did I tear the Veil somehow?” Raina asked in dismay.

“I think not,” the high matriarch answered promptly. “Something else caused that.” She took a deep breath and then announced, “This is becoming too dangerous. I am sorry, Rosana. I cannot in good conscience allow this ritual to continue. We will have to find another way to restore your spirit to you.”

And high time it was, indeed, to end this madness.
Praise the Lady
. Will balled his fists tightly, frustrated with the outcome of this fiasco. Intellectually, he understood the high matriarch's decision. Both she and Raina looked about ready to collapse. But curses, he'd been counting on Rosana being whole once more. There
had
to be a way to fix her. He would find it, come hounds or high water. It was the least he could do for her. She was willing to sacrifice her life to save him. And he was willing to do no less for her.

 

CHAPTER

5

Raina lay in the dark, frozen with terror in her narrow bunk. Something powerful enough to attack a ritual while not even in the same room had come for them tonight. Who or what had that kind of power? The actual fabric of magic, the veil between the planes themselves, had been torn. Anything that powerful could crush her and her friends like so many ants underfoot.

She'd known in a vague way that attempting to wake the Sleeping King would also wake powerful forces opposed to the idea. But now that the reality was upon her, she had to question the wisdom of carrying on in their quest. The Kothite Emperor himself would throw his full might at them when he got wind of what they were up to. And surely he would, at some point. The Empire had eyes and ears everywhere. No matter how careful and secretive they were, she and her companions were bound to catch someone's attention eventually. She just hadn't expected it to be this soon.

Breathing hard, she lay in the half-dark listening to the sounds of the Heart chapter beyond the curtain separating her little alcove from the common room. The building was never still. People came and went around the clock seeking healing or trading for healing scrolls and potions. A constant murmur of voices, bangs, shuffles, and other man-made sounds enveloped her. Usually, she liked how it reminded her of her family's crowded, noisy manor house far away in Tyrel.

But tonight, she just wished for a little silence in which to quiet her mind. As exhausting as the physical demands of summoning so much magic had been, her nerves still jangled too badly to let her sleep. How on Urth had anyone interrupted that ritual? It had actually been going very well until that first surge of … disturbance, for lack of any better way of thinking of it. She'd been calling and molding spirit magic for as long as she had memory, and she'd never encountered anything like the ripple that passed through all the spirit magic in the land. It was as if a piece of her own soul had torn loose and been destroyed.

And then the attacks on the curse circle that had panicked Rosana and whatever had happened to put Will on the floor in writhing agony … she'd have called them backlashes if the ritual hadn't continued on as it had.

She'd never heard of anyone or anything that could corrupt a ritual like that. But then, she'd never heard of any of the stuff six months ago that she and her friends were currently elbow deep in. Like it or not, they all had enemies now.

Should they consider stopping their search for the Sleeping King's regalia? Did they dare stop? They were already so deep into treason that none of them would survive capture by Imperial forces of any kind. They already had no homes, no families, no names left. At this point, they had little to lose by continuing on.

She pulled the thin blanket up around her ears. Not that it blocked out the low groans of whatever injury had just stumbled in. The flow of sick and hurt people through the building never stopped. She yanked the blanket all the way over her head.

Stars, she really hated the Heart sometimes. She'd just wanted to live a normal life. To grow up at home in her beloved Tyrel, marry her childhood sweetheart, Justin, and raise a family. She'd never dreamed of
this
for herself.

She glared up at the White Heart tabard hanging on its hook beside her, its pristine white bright in the light leaking past her curtain, the royal blue Heart symbol on it a dark shadow in the dim alcove. And she'd certainly never dreamed of joining
that
order.

Her thoughts circled back to the failed ritual. She had cast plenty of high magic rituals before, but none had ever made her feel so trapped or claustrophobic. The magics tonight had suffocated her, pushing in until she'd been hard-pressed not to bolt from the circle. That same restlessness overcame her now. With a resentful glare for it, she snatched her tabard off the hook and dragged the White Heart colors over her head. She jammed her feet into her boots and headed out into the common room.

A lizardman healer looked up in surprise from the wounded man he was healing. His green scales and broad, kind face were markedly different from Sha'Li's black scales and heart-shaped features. His eyes were dark with compassion and concern for his patient.

“Can I assist you, Brother Lizmorn?” she mumbled, checking her irritation. No sense taking out her foul mood on everyone around her.

“No, thank you. I've got this. And you tired yourself out with that ritual. Rest, Initiate Raina.”

If only. On cue, the walls of the common room and the low, heavy-beamed ceiling with temporary braces propped all along its length started to close in on her. She had to get out of here. Grabbing her cloak from its hook by the door, she made for the exit. At this time of night, the wizard's lock was in place around the entire building, and a Royal Order of the Sun knight was pulling door duty, wizard's lock key in hand to let people in or out of the building.

“Going somewhere?” he asked her.

She recognized him, a red-haired barbarian warrior newly come from serving with Lord Justinius—commander of the entire Royal Order of the Sun. “I'm just stepping out, Sir Hrothgar. I need some air.”

“It's too late for a young girl to be roaming the streets of Dupree alone.”

“Nonetheless, that's exactly what I intend to do. The wizard's lock, please.” She didn't often resort to the polite but firm noble's tone of command her mother had perfected and which she imitated now.

Frowning, Hrothgar lowered the lock, and the faint glow around the doorway disappeared. But then he surprised her by tossing the key to Lizmorn. “You've got the door while I escort the White Heart.”

“I've no need for an escort,” she protested. She really just wanted to be by herself for a little while. Was that too much to ask?

The knight ignored her and threw a cloak over his armor. He took up an imposing white shield emblazoned with the Royal Order's symbol—a red field with the heart-and-sunray pattern upon it—and drew his sword.

Oh, for the love of the Lady
. “I'm not going into battle,” she grumbled.

He merely shrugged and opened the door for her. Stubborn barbarian.

With a huff of exasperation at the ruination of her plan to be alone, she stepped past him. The night was chilly and damp, and she breathed deeply of the cold, fresh air. Resolved to ignore the warrior pacing behind her, she hurried down the steps and across the broad square in front of the Heart building.

The city of Dupree was laid out like a wheel. The governor's palace and the huge square around it made up the hub. Broad avenues led outward like spokes to smaller squares, each one housing the headquarters of a different Imperial guild. The space between the spokes was a warren of twisting side streets, businesses, and dwellings crammed together willy-nilly to make a sprawling city.

It was into this morass of winding streets she plunged with Hrothgar in tow. Her White Heart colors virtually assured her that no one would harm or harass her here. Not only was the tabard known and respected by all, but she, herself, had gained acclaim as a prodigious healer in the great riots just prior to Anton Constantine's fall. It probably didn't hurt, either, that she resembled her mother, Charlotte, who had been a great beauty renowned throughout Dupree in her youth. And then, of course, there was the burly, menacing, and well-armed knight stalking her heels.

She wandered the deserted streets, enjoying the shine of wet cobblestones and the way tendrils of fog curled at her feet as she neared the shore of the great Bay of Dupree. She fancied that she could hear the voices of the sleeping people of Dupree whispering to her as she moved among them.

Her claustrophobia dissipated, leaving her so exhausted she could hardly stand. She paused on a street corner to orient herself and realized with a start that she was just around the corner from Leland Hyland's town house. The landsgrave had been like a father to her since she had come here, protecting her and advising her in her quest to find the Sleeping King. He'd been the one to convince her to join the White Heart, as well. It was mostly for him that she tolerated the confines of the colors.

Her entire being felt drained. Empty. The long walk back to the Heart loomed, and she was abruptly so fatigued she could not fathom making the long trek back to her own bed. It was not as if she could ask Hrothgar to carry her home on his shoulders. Although she had no doubt he would if she asked him to. The Royal Order of the Sun took its duty to the White Heart extremely seriously, which was ironic in its own way. Some of the most violent warriors in the Empire protected the exclusively pacifist arm of the Heart.

“Sir Hrothgar, would you mind if I spent the night at Hyland's house?”

“That would be acceptable. The landsgrave and his troops are capable and honorable men. They will keep you safe at the forfeit of their own lives.”