The Shards (13 page)

Two weeks ago, early one grey morning, Lady Margot rushed out of the gates on her jet black steed with her minions in tow, leaving only Kettin and the Talamaran soldiers she had trained in charge. She left in such haste, trampling anyone or anything that happened to be in her and her troops pathway, that all believed something truly alarming was transpiring in the world beyond the gates of the city, yet they felt relief nonetheless. It was the first time in a long time that the city was free of its recent leadership. The oppressive feelings of anxiety and dread that hung over them every moment of every day that she ruled Talamar were exhausting. In addition, the fear that grasped them with its sharply clawed hand was wearing away at them slowly but surely. In her brief absence, it felt to many as if the sun had risen after weeks of darkness and gloom.

Out of sight, out of mind! The people of Talamar had short memories and even shorter measures of loyalty. The Knights of Avalain with their confidence and impressive appearance, represented an alternative to the depression and joylessness that Margot brought with her. And they offered protection! They were strong and magnificent, and fearless and righteous; a combination of all of the qualities that so few Talamarans embodied themselves. Parsifal offered them a chance, a ray of light, and it began to appear as the better alternative to what they had recently been living with. Weak people make weak decisions. Whether they choose good or evil, their motives determine their worth. Greed and self-interest often obscure the honorable path, and these were the emotions and concerns that precipitated the flawed decisions the people of Talamar made.

The soldiers could do nothing to prevent the people from storming the closed and sealed gates. In fact, many of the armed men themselves sought anonymity in the crowd of desperate citizens, until total chaos prevailed within the square inside the city walls. Screaming and crying could be heard everywhere, as children lost sight of their parents, husbands were separated from their wives, and families and alliances of all kinds were ripped asunder in the desperate frenzy that ensued as so many tried to escape from what had been a virtual prison for weeks now.

High up in the tower chamber of the castle, Kettin stood at the leaded window and warily scrutinized the scene in the street below. He ignored the persistent banging on the door and the shouting, and he repeatedly pressed his hands to his ears in an effort to block out the unremitting sound. He saw the Knights assembled beyond the walls, and at first he thought that the people were gathering in order to attack the columns of soldiers who had arrived at his doorstep the previous day. But as he watched, he soon realized that they were seeking only to flee the city, not to defend it.

“Where are you, Margot? How could you leave me here like this? What am I to do without you?” he beseeched the stone walls that surrounded him, pounding on them with his fists. “My people are abandoning me! You told me you would protect me!” he wailed.

He watched helplessly as the guards who stood before the gates in their new white and green tunics with the trees emblazoned across their chests, were throttled and pummeled and pushed out of the way by the mob. He observed as their ranks collapsed and they gave way to the frantic population. He saw the surge of the masses as they rushed to escape the confines of the city. Kettin gasped as the heavy wooden bars, reinforced by the iron that encircled them, were lifted by the unruly crowd and tossed to the side like a child’s play-sticks. He pulled the curtain halfway over his face and left only his eyes exposed as the enormous gates of Talamar were flung open wide and the throngs of people virtually collapsed upon one another in their rush to flee. From his vantage point, he could see the Knights step casually to the side and form two lines perpendicular to the walls, between which the crowds stumbled and scurried and fought their way out of the city.

“What do you want?” he yelled at whomever was buffeting his door. “Leave me alone! I do not wish to be disturbed!” he shrieked, panic stricken.

Through the thick wood, he heard shouting.

“My Lord?” Fobush yelled. “You must let me in! I have to speak with you!” his councilor insisted. “Time is running out!”

“What is it you need from me? I am not well. I need to rest,” Kettin pleaded, pressing his hands to his ears even harder.

“Open the door. There is nothing wrong with your health. It is your soul that is sick. This door cannot protect you any longer!” he barked. “The witch is not here to stop me now!”

“I am sick! I am weak! I am not hiding. Cannot someone else help you? What can I do?” he cried.

“Be a man for once!” Fobush shouted furiously. “Face the situation that you are responsible for creating! If you do not open this door, I will bash it down myself if I must.”

Kettin heard a loud banging on the door, much more violent than before. He could see the hinges bulging and the dust flying all over the chamber as the thrashing increased. He backed slowly away from the window and sat down in the corner farthest from the doorway. He drew his knees into his chest and grasped them with his arms. Finally, he bent his head, buried it in the flesh of his forearms and sobbed uncontrollably. Through partially concealed eyes swollen with tears, he watched the wood give way, and filled with dread, he stared as it shattered and splintered into a thousand pieces and fell all over the thickly carpeted floor.

“Get up from the ground, Kettin!” Fobush demanded as he moved toward the cringing Duke. “The time of reckoning is upon us!”

Chapter Thirteen

“Ouch!” Tamara exclaimed as she hit the surface with a dull thud. She blinked her eyes over and over again in an attempt to determine if there was any light down here at all. Sitting up, she rubbed her legs with her hands to try and bring the circulation back. Apparently her fall did more damage than the pain indicated, for she could barely feel her own ankles they were so numb.

Propping herself up with one hand, she leaned heavily onto the floor of the pit. It was covered in a spongy, moss-like substance that was not offensive at all to the touch. As she grew more accustomed to the space, she thought she could see some sort of illumination in the chamber, though it was certainly dim. It did not emanate from any one direction but seemed to come from everywhere at once, as if the substance upon which she sat was itself iridescent. Though she tried as hard as she could to look around her for a sign of Angeline, she could not see far enough into the distance to serve her purposes.

“Angeline?” she called warily. “Are you here? Can you hear me?”

Her words were greeted with silence.

Could she still be up there hanging onto the wall?
she wondered.
Her fear of falling may be sustaining her
, Tamara supposed, but before she could even finish her thought she heard a scraping sound coming from above her head.

“Is that you, Angeline?” she called out in the semi-darkness.

“Thank the First you are alive!” she heard her friend say from somewhere above her. As she spoke, her voice became louder and clearer as she scrambled down the wall. “I watched you disappear into the darkness and then I heard you hit the ground. I counted the seconds between those moments, and at least I knew you hadn’t plummeted too far a distance. Are you hurt? What did you land on?” she asked, almost at the bottom now herself.

“I am not sure. But it is not rock. I am thankful though that I still have some extra padding on my bottom,” she said, though her body was beginning to ache somewhat by this time.

“Can you stand? Is anything broken?”

“I do not think so,” Tamara replied, scanning her body, searching for serious injuries. She stood slowly in the semi-darkness and stretched her limbs one by one. Though they were stiff, none were immobile, and her movements were not accompanied by any serious pain. “No. Nothing is broken. I was lucky.”

“You certainly were!” Angeline said, and Tamara felt the comfort of her friend’s hand on her shoulder. Her silhouette was vaguely outlined beside her in the dark. “Where are we, do you think?”

“I have no idea,” Tamara replied honestly. “Are you okay?” she asked, remembering her friend’s close encounter with the enemy only moments ago.

“Yes, thanks to you!” she smiled. “By the First, Tamara, I was scared! What a horrible feeling that was. I could not breathe at all. And the voice inside my head was just awful! It was laughing and beckoning to me dreadfully, coaxing me to relax and give in to it. You know, I almost did!” she said, shuddering at the memory. “It all happened so fast.”

“I saw her face,” Tamara whispered.

“Whose?” Angeline asked.

“Lady Margot. The woman who attacked me when I first went to visit Liam and Oleander. We seem to be destined to confront one another,” Tamara pondered.

“How did you do that before?” Angeline asked, referring to her rescue from the ghastly slime that had enveloped her.

“I really do not know. At least, I could not tell you in words,” Tamara said. “But, I saw her face materialize before me as I worked. She was not happy!”

“Did you expect her to thank you? That was my job. Thank you, Tamara. Thank you so much!” she extolled her.

“There is no need to do that, Angeline. You would have done the same for me, I have no doubt,” Tamara bowed her head.

“I would have certainly if I could. You speak as if what you did anyone could have done. Tamara? Do you realize what power you have?”

“Power?” she asked, surprised. “I merely did what I had to do.”

“Well sister, would that we all could do it as deftly as you!”

“It was a natural response to the circumstances,” she said.

“I am in your debt, sister,” Angeline nodded.

“And now you can repay that debt, sister,” Tamara said smiling. “I am a bit stiff in the leg. Would you help me to straighten up?” she asked.

“Of course, sister,” Angeline replied.

Angeline helped Tamara to stand, and she massaged her right ankle and calf vigorously.

“That helped,” Tamara said, as she put her weight upon the sore leg and pressed it into the soft surface. “Oh my!” Tamara exclaimed as her foot sunk about four or five inches into the ground. “This is quite unstable, is it not sister? I am glad that I did not sink even deeper.” She pulled her foot out of the downy matter and shook it off. “What do you suppose we should do now?”

“I was hoping that you would have some ideas, sister,” Angeline replied.

“Well, I imagine that it would do us no harm to look around. It seems safe enough down here. At least that awful woman did not follow us any further,” Tamara replied, and then she looked suspiciously around herself.

“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” Angeline asked, as she inched closer to her friend.

“I believe so, sister. If she was afraid to follow us down here, maybe there was a reason.”

“Maybe. I too was wondering that.”

“Let us be careful then,” Tamara said, taking her companion’s arm in her own.

Together, they began to walk cautiously in the dim, iridescent light in the direction that they happened to be facing. The ground was littered with rocks of all sizes and shapes, and Tamara tripped upon one in the gloom.

“Ouch!” she cried. “That hurt. Careful where you walk.”

When they reached the stone and mud of the wall, they followed it to their right and continued pacing out the perimeter of the chamber. Tamara stood closest to the wall and Angeline walked beside her. The stout sister allowed her fingers to gently graze the surface as they moved, and she tried to understand its composition by concentrating as hard as she could upon its feel and texture. It was moist and smooth, though there were indentations every so often that she hesitated at first to stick her hand into.

After walking almost one hundred paces Tamara stopped. Angeline saw she was perplexed by something.

“What is it? What have you discovered?” Angeline asked.

“Walk back with me to where we started,” was Tamara’s reply. When they had retraced their steps, Tamara let go of her friend and knelt down. Placing one of her hands on the juncture between the wall and the floor, she measured upward in hand lengths as she would a horse in the stables, until she reached the first indentation that she had felt previously. She then walked about five paces to the right and knelt down again. Once more she measured the height from the ground up until she reached the next hollow. Nodding her head as if she was reaching some understanding, she continued another five paces to the right and repeated the procedure again.

“These holes are not here by accident!” she exclaimed. “They are precisely the same distance apart from one another and the exact same height from the floor. Someone or something arranged them so,” she proclaimed, satisfied with her analysis. “And none of the rocks, no matter how broad they are, stand higher than the holes. Could this be mere coincidence?”

“The holes certainly not. But the rocks? To what purpose, do you think, if not by chance?” Angeline asked. “They seem natural enough.”

“I have no idea. But maybe if I reach inside one of these cavities I will get some answers about them at least,” Tamara replied and swiftly stuck her hand into the one closest to them. She was surprised to find that it was actually quite deep and that her fingers barely felt anything. Her arm was not long enough to reach the hollow’s end. “I cannot imagine what these are. They are so uniform in size and shape, but I cannot feel anything inside.”

“Did you hear that?” Angeline said, startled by a hissing sound coming from above their heads.

“Yes, sister. Unfortunately I did,” she replied, yanking her arm away from the wall. “We may have spoken too soon about Margot not following us down here.”

“Is it she, do you sense?” Angeline asked, and drew her bow from her back and notched an arrow.

“It can be none other than she. I am certain. Come, quickly! We must find a place to hide!” Tamara said, grabbing Angeline’s arm once again. “I do not know what more I can do to keep her away from us.”

Tamara conjured a small orb of light, just enough to illuminate the area in front of it, but not strong enough to expose them to their enemy, though in the semi-darkness it was a risk nonetheless. They quickly ran to the wall of the pit and began to search for an opening large enough for them to conceal themselves inside of. But, all the indentations were of equal size and shape, as Tamara suspected they would be, and none were nearly wide enough for either of them to climb into. They continued to look regardless, as the whooshing sound grew louder and the air grew hotter and more humid by the moment. Margot, it appeared, was being more cautious this time, and she was descending into the bottom of the pit more slowly than during her previous attack.

“Have we put the fear of the First in her, do you think?” Angeline whispered hopefully.

“I doubt she fears anything other than Colton’s retribution, sister. She wishes only not to be caught off guard again, I presume,” Tamara replied. “Hush now. She approaches. Stay close to me,” she said under her breath.

Tamara extinguished the light, and both women crouched down low against the wall and drew their capes over them in an effort to conceal their location. She felt the scroll pressing against her body and it seemed to throb in anticipation. In response, Tamara quietly slid it out of its case and placed it in the nearest hollow in the wall where her hand had just been only moments before.

Leaving the scroll down here might serve the same purpose as dropping it down the well in Odelot anyway. Who would ever find it in this pit? At least if we are captured Colton will gain only our lives.

In the darkness, even Angeline could not see her movements though she was right beside her. Tamara concealed the empty case in her robe once again, and backed away from the wall a pace or so. As the noise grew louder she thought she heard a very slight grating or scraping sound coming from somewhere behind her, but it was impossible to focus upon everything at once, and she needed to concentrate upon the descending enemy. She scanned the surfaces once again with her mind, but it was hard to find anything that responded to her touch.

What can these holes be for?
she wondered, as her awareness continued to brush over them.

She probed the one nearest them as deeply as she could, but her examination yielded nothing, so she shifted her attention to what she hoped would be more productive. Tamara focused her thoughts upon her friend and herself, seeking only to conceal their position, but she really did not know what to do. Her experience was so limited, despite the fact that her power was strong. The only things that responded to her manipulations were the dust and debris that covered the soft surface, and they served only to make her want to sneeze as they rose from the ground in small swirls and zephyrs.

Suddenly an image of a woman whom she did not recognize appeared in her head, and an idea came to her almost simultaneous with the appearance of the vision. She manipulated the flurry of dust until it coagulated into a domed shaped, rock-like substance. Though it looked heavy, it was as light as the eddies of dust, and she willed it to settle down around them with its broadest side resting flat against the cavern wall. It was not perfect, but it served its purpose. They were now concealed from the enemy to some extent. Margot would see through the ruse eventually, but it would give them a little more time to think and plan.

Whose face was that I saw. She looked so sweet, but so full of anguish. Was it she who planted this idea for a shelter in my mind?

Tamara had not another moment to wonder, for as soon as the rock surface settled around them, so did the enemy. She could hear movement outside of the covering and both she and Angeline held their breaths so as not to make the slightest sound. The noises were muffled by the overlay, but sounds could still be heard nonetheless.

“Sweep the area!” Margot ordered. “They must be here somewhere. There is no place for them to go!”

The sisters could feel the surface pounding with the footsteps of those who accompanied Margot. It was no small number that had descended with her in order to find them.

“Whoever finds them will have the privilege of killing them!” they heard her shout.

Tamara was tiring from the effort of maintaining the illusion that was protecting them. She knew that she could not keep them hidden forever. Fortunately, there were many rocks strewn all around and the one she had created looked no different than any of the others. The odds of them discovering this one were slim, and they had not even begun to suspect the deception yet. They would search the chamber from top to bottom first, and then maybe consider the other options. Nevertheless, they could not remain hidden here indefinitely, and the prospect of Margot giving up before she found them was not likely.

Angeline tapped Tamara softly on the shoulder and tried to get her attention without making her lose her concentration, but she was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she ignored her completely. After another attempt and another rebuff from Tamara, Angeline grew more persistent.

“Sister!” she whispered. “I have something to tell you. You must listen to me.”

“Hush now, Angeline. It must wait. I cannot waver in my attention to what I am doing,” she replied, and she continued her focus upon the shield and the enemy.

“It cannot wait,” Angeline said, and with both hands she physically turned Tamara’s head toward her.

Tamara gasped as she found herself gazing into the eyes of a being, the likes of which she had never seen before. It took all of her strength to not drop the shield completely and expose them all to the enemy. Behind the glowing, bulbous eyes of this odd looking creature was a tunnel that seemed to wind endlessly outward from the cavern.