The Lost Realm (25 page)

“Samial, did you hear what I said? Is Fessan—”

“Elodie! Run!”

There was a sudden flurry of movement. The shadows unfolded, became the figure of a man, rushing at her. The man gripped her shoulder and spun her around. Something cold and thin touched her bare neck . . . then bit into it.

The pain was sudden and immense. It was as if a line of fire had been drawn across her throat and was now burning into it. Elodie tried to scream, but no sound came out.

Strangled! I'm being strangled!

She threw up her arms, trying to grab at the head of the man who was throttling her. Her fingers failed to grip his coarse, short hair.

Is this how Palenie felt, when Rotho strangled her to death in the Trident camp?

“Hold on, Elodie!”

Then the thing around her slackened. Pain still seared her neck, but suddenly she could breathe again.

“Witchcraft?” said the man who'd been trying to kill her. His voice was thick and gruff and full of surprise. “What is this?”

Drawing in agonized, rasping breaths, Elodie managed to turn in her attacker's grip. Samial was there, right behind her, his grimy fingers sunk deep into the would-be assassin's throat. The man's eyes bulged.

Then the noose tightened again, and Elodie felt herself slipping into a faint. Perhaps into death.

The knife!

She reached clumsily beneath her cloak. For a moment she thought it was gone. Then she had it: the ornate dagger Lord Vicerin had given her. Her fingers tightened on the hilt and she pulled it from its scabbard. She slashed blindly behind her, stabbing three times before she finally felt the blade sink into flesh. The man howled, his cry cut off by Samial's hands, and the pressure of the noose went away completely.

Clutching at her burning throat, Elodie finally managed to break free. She staggered back down the passageway, only to see Samial thrown against the wall. He slid down it, his eyelids flickering.

The man—a white-faced hulk dressed all in black—looked briefly puzzled as he tried to determine who had attacked him. Then he lunged for Elodie and tried to grapple the dagger from her hand.

As his large fingers closed around her wrist, she finally found the scream she'd been looking for.

The first to reach her was Cedric. He hurled himself at her attacker. Even as he shouldered the man aside, Captain Gandrell and two of his soldiers fell upon him, dragged him out into the courtyard, and wrestled him to the ground.

Breathing hard, Cedric put his left hand—his only hand—gently on Elodie's shoulder.

“Are you all right?” he said.

Elodie tried to speak, but all she could manage was a wordless croak.

Sylva appeared behind Cedric, her normally rosy complexion turned to the color of chalk.

“Elodie!” She slipped her arm around her waist and hugged her tight. To Elodie's relief, Samial had picked himself up and stood close by, his eyes still wide with shock.

Then Captain Gandrell was there.

“He will be taken to the dungeon,” he said, his face more skeletal than ever. “Do you know him, Princess? Is he one of that wretched Trident rabble?”

If not for the pain in her throat, Elodie would have informed him that Trident wasn't a rabble, and that the people he called wretched were her friends. Perhaps it was as well she couldn't speak. Instead she just shrugged.

“I don't think this had anything to do with Trident.” Cedric had bent to the ground to pick something up. “Look at this.”

Dangling from his fingers was a long strip of leather, thinner than rope, thicker than wire. Each end was capped with a curved handgrip that looked like ivory.

Elodie shuddered. She'd seen a weapon like this before. Rotho had used an identical leather strip to strangle Palenie.

“I know what this is,” Cedric went on. “It's a garrote from Galadron. You can tell by the grips—they're carved from sea-wolf tusks.”

The leather garrote swung hypnotically back and forth in Cedric's fingers. Elodie watched it sway, fascinated and repulsed by the thing that had almost killed her.

Galadron. The desert land where the sun never sleeps.

It was a phrase she remembered from her lessons. Galadron lay far to the west of Toronia, on the other side of the ocean. Its heartland was said to be a scorching wasteland of white sand, a place of death and strange magic. Yet its coast was green and fertile, home to many large cities.

This man from Galadron had clearly also seen the empty castle as his opportunity to strike. But why were the Galadronians so intent on assassinating one of the heirs to the throne of Toronia?

Elodie could think of only one reason.

Invasion.

I
don't think I can do this much longer.”

Tarlan kicked at the smooth surface of the stone platform in frustration, then dropped to his knees. He peered down into the water, willing Melchior to move.

But the wizard remained just as he had for the past few days: stiff and immobile. No breath lifted his chest. His spine was bent backward, his arms were thrust out, his fingers were clawed. His mouth was drawn down in what might have been pain or dread or both. He looked like a man undergoing the worst torture imaginable.

Sometimes, in the wastes of Yalasti, Tarlan had come across animals frozen in the ice. In what passed for the Yalasti summer, a sudden thaw might occasionally create a flash flood that cascaded down the mountain slopes, washing away any unwary creatures caught in its path.

Tarlan remembered a particular hunting trip he'd taken from Mirith's cave. He'd rounded a corner and there it was: a sinuous ice snake of frozen floodwaters, standing twice his height and extending far out of sight both up the mountain and down. Inside its glassy, blue-white confines was a black mountain bear, locked inside forever.

The bear had looked peaceful.

Melchior looked like he was dying.

“It's no good,” said Tarlan, leaning down toward the water. “I've got to get him out.”

“Wait more,” croaked Theeta from behind him.

It took all Tarlan's willpower to stop himself from plunging his hands into the silver pool and dragging Melchior clear.

Oh, Mirith! What must I do?

His hand went to his throat, seeking the green jewel the dying frost witch had given him.

But the jewel wasn't there.

Neither was Mirith.

Mirith may be dead, but Melchior isn't. Not yet. Mirith told me to find him, and now he's told me to wait. Theeta's right. I just have to be patient.

But it was so hard.

He turned his attention back to the dull white stones embedded into the black walls of the crater. Melchior had promised that as his powers returned, the stones would begin to shine, just like the star constellations they represented.

They don't look any different to me.

Feeling glum, he took a strip of dried venison from his pouch and chewed it disconsolately. His supplies were getting low. He'd managed to keep warm at night by nestling with the thorrods, and had stopped his legs seizing up by walking endless circuits around the perimeter of the stone platform. But if he stayed here much longer, he was going to go mad.

Large wings obscured the light filtering down from the crater's mouth, high above, and suddenly Nasheen was there, landing silently beside her two thorrod companions. Concerned for his friends, Tarlan had sent her to check on the members of the pack who hadn't been able to make the journey across the sea to the Isle of Stars.

“Wolf moved,” Nasheen said in her scratchy voice. “Tigron moved. Bear moved.”

“They've moved? Moved where?”

The short feathers on Nasheen's brow flexed into something resembling a frown. This was quite a speech for a thorrod.

“Not sand. In trees.”

Tarlan nodded in satisfaction. So they'd taken cover in the thin strip of woodland flanking the beach. That was smart. They'd be safe there.

He looked back at the pattern of white stones on the wall. Still no change. He sighed. Absently he scratched his hand. The gashes made by Brock when he'd first encountered the bear in his cage had scabbed over, but they were itching terribly. He thrust his hand down into the water, wanting nothing more than to cool the skin.

The itching turned to tingling. Realizing what he'd done, he snatched his hand out of the lake. He looked at the skin, suddenly afraid.

The gashes were gone. Where they'd been, there were no scars.

The water had healed him.

“I don't believe it! Theeta, did you . . . ?”

Turning, he saw his thorrod friend pecking at the bandages on her injured foot. The fabric had come loose during the flight from Isur, and now the angry scar on the stump of her missing talon was clearly visible.

Filled with sudden inspiration, Tarlan called her to the edge of the pool.

“Put your claws in the water,” he said.

Theeta clacked her beak nervously. Had he ever known this gigantic bird to be nervous before? Tarlan didn't think so.

“It's all right. It's perfectly safe.”

He touched his hand to the tip of her lethal beak.

Slowly, Theeta dipped her injured foot into the pool. She kept it there for a moment. Tarlan held his breath. Then she withdrew it.

The scar was gone. Theeta's stump was smooth with newly polished scales. The talon was still missing, but all signs of infection had vanished.

“Good foot,” Theeta cawed.

“Yes!” Tarlan laughed. “Good foot!” He stared around at the blank white stones with renewed hope.

If the water does that to a hand—or a claw—what might it do to a whole body?

What might it do to a wizard?

“Come on!” he shouted at the walls. “Come on! Show me!”

A crash of thunder swallowed his words. The storm had grumbled throughout most of the previous day, so that Tarlan had begun to think that thunder and lightning were normal weather conditions for the Isle of Stars. But this morning he'd woken to find the sky quiet.

Now the storm had come back.

Lightning tore across the top of the crater. Its glare shattered the surface of the silver water, and for a moment Tarlan believed the storm was raging not in the sky but in the hidden depths of the pool.

“We're going to get wet again!” he shouted to the thorrods.

One of the white stones lit up.

Tarlan stared at it slack-jawed. Excitement fizzed through his veins. He thought he heard more thunder, but it was only the sudden pounding of his pulse in his ears.

Another streak of lightning ripped through the sky, through the water. A second stone flashed bright, then a third. Rain began to lash Tarlan's face, but he didn't care.

“Melchior!” he yelled, dancing on the spot. “Melchior!”

The silver water had turned choppy. Was the weather causing it, or something else? Glittering froth obscured his view of the submerged wizard. Had Melchior moved? He couldn't tell.

Thunder roared, then died, leaving a sudden silence in which Tarlan heard a new sound, very faint, very distant.

Somebody shouting.

More thunder. Skeins of lightning crisscrossed the sky. It was as if a giant had cast a net of light over the whole island. Again that eerie calm.

Another white stone winked into life, and another. A pause, then a frantic flurry of light as brilliance burst from one stone and leaped to the next, to the next, to the next. Dazzled and bewildered, Tarlan watched as a hundred stones started to burn, then a thousand, an intricate web of stars blazing from the night-black rock.

Again he heard shouting.

“They come,” croaked Theeta.

Tarlan tore his gaze from the stones. “Who? Who comes?”

Theeta shrugged her massive wings. “See not.”

Tarlan wanted to shake her. The thorrods were so smart, and yet had no imagination whatsoever.

But incredible ears.

“What do you hear?” He managed to get the question out before the thunder returned.

“Many come! Many cry!”

“Come from where?” asked Tarlan. Apart from the fishing village they'd glimpsed, the beach had been deserted.

“We go!” Theeta threw out her wings. Her black eyes were filled with urgency. Behind her, Kitheen and Nasheen were already in the air.

Torn by indecision, Tarlan hovered at the edge of the pool. Melchior had told him to stay and keep watch. But if Theeta was right—and hadn't he heard the shouts himself?—people were coming.

They mustn't find Melchior.

He raced across the platform and sprang onto Theeta's back.

No sooner had the three thorrods emerged from the crater than the wind picked them up and flung them out over the sea. Fighting to keep hold of the stiff gold feathers encircling Theeta's neck, Tarlan steered her in a rapid circuit of the island. All the way around he peered down through the driving rain.