The Turquoise Tower (Revenant Wyrd Book 6) (21 page)

Angelica’s head swam with stars when her back smashed painfully into the unforgiving wood of a towering oak. She slumped to the ground, the shin-buto slipping from her grasp. She had been doing so well, thinking she had the treant by the roots, when suddenly its roots had
her
, and were teaching her how to fly.

She hadn’t done well with the landing. And neither did she have time to think about where she was, or how far she was from Jovian, because the treant was rumbling across the marsh toward her. Though it was missing half of its head and one of its arms, Angelica now knew not to take those injuries for granted.

She lifted the lapis shin-buto in her hands and felt the mind within the sword slither up her arm. When Jovian had told her to use wyrd, she had done just that. She had lifted the sword, intent on firing lightning from the blade, but when it happened, she felt the sword wake up, and the lightning had been so much more than that.

A storm of pure destruction,
she thought. Again she called on the power of the sword, and felt it strengthen the connection she had with the channel of earthen wyrd in her head.

The treant lashed out at her with its one remaining arm, and Angelica skittered under the blow, bring the sword up and infusing the blade with the will of fire. The shin-buto cut deep, penetrating further into the tree’s flesh. A blossom of sap oozed out of the wound, and the treant howled with the sound of breaking wood. She had damaged it.

What was more, Angelica felt the fire she’d conjured along the sword’s edge take root within the treant. But without her channeling more wyrd into it, the fire went out.

But she had been thinking too much about the wyrd, had concentrated too long on it. The treant lifted its leg and slammed it into Angelica. Her head swam dizzyingly, and just before she was launched into the air, Angelica stabbed her sword deep into the tangle of roots the creature used as a foot. Purple fire blasted down the length of her sword, and this time when she felt it take root, she didn’t stop channeling her wyrd into it.

She opened the channel of wyrd as wide as she could, and screamed as the full force of the fire swam through her being. Angelica felt the heat rising off her skin in ripples and waves, but what was more, she felt the fire spreading through the treant like rivers of water breaking through a dam. When the flame found the veins of sap that ran through the creature, it was all over.

Angelica barely had time to yank her sword free and fall the amazing distance to the earth before the treant exploded. Large lumps of wood and smoldering sap showered down around Angelica. She was knocked to the ground by a large piece of wood, and her skin was charred from the heat of the burning sap.

Angelica screamed, feeling the sap melt into her skin before it finally cooled, though her nerves still shrieked with a thousand voices of pain. She shivered, trying to get to her feet. She was aware, through the pain, that her body wasn’t obeying her. Angelica felt as though her consciousness was taking second place to her body’s nerves, which were dancing in pain, like she was nothing more than an organism instead of a soul. She sank to the ground, allowing her body to do what it must do, and gasped through the pain.

Just as blissful relaxation washed over her, the relaxation she only ever felt after intense pain, Angelica saw a lick of blue flame conjured in the distance, and she made the first of several jumps back to the tree.

The treant was wounded, and that gave Jovian courage. But he no longer felt the need to protect Angelica, and without the need to protect, the power of the sword slithered back into its hiding place.

What about me?
Jovian thought.
You only work to protect my sisters?

The sword seemed to hum up his arm, as if answering in a language he couldn’t understand. But as the treant came closer, fear gripped Jovian’s heart, and the sword answered. He still needed help.

The treant came closer, and it lashed out at him with those tendrils he had seen the other one use to yank Angelica away. The sword answered, and Jovian could do little more than obey its call.

Jovian danced out of the way, the shin-buto shimmering in the faint green light of the swamp. The tendrils wrapped around empty air where Jovian had been moments before, and started to retract. But before they could fully make it back to the treant, the sword lashed out, severing them in a spout of sap.

The treant howled and made to back away, but the sword wouldn’t let it go. Jovian darted after the treant as it retreated through the forest. He danced forward, swung out with his sword, and like a hot knife through butter the shin-buto slipped through the one leg the treant had been hopping on.

With a concussion of earth, the treant slammed to the ground, snapping trees as it fell and throwing dirt high up into the air upon impact.

Jovian ran up on its back, but now that the treant knew there was no escape, it started to roll, and Jovian had to change the direction of his run so that he was running along its exposed surface, trying to stay atop the creature. His legs carried him faster than the treant could roll, and Jovian jumped to the ground beside it.

There was fire in his blood, and Jovian meant to release it on the treant. But his attention was diverted to the right, where a wisp of blue flame appeared atop a bone-white torch between Jovian and the tree where he knew Baba Yaga to be. It was calling him back, and in the moment he looked away from the treant, it merged with the ground and vanished from sight.

“How did that happen?” Jovian asked, reappearing back at the tree.

“Didn’t you feel it?” Angelica asked him, elated. “When I used my wyrd to unlock the shin-buto, I just
knew
that it would help with wyrding. It makes sense — it used to be Aunt Pharoh’s, right?”

“And mine was given to me to protect you guys,” Jovian agreed. He looked down at the blade, trying to figure out what had just come over him. It hadn’t been his mother, it had been something else. The feeling of the sword still thrummed intoxicatingly through his veins. He closed his eyes and felt the power recede from his body, ebbing down his arm and back into the shin-buto. After long moments he opened them again and surveyed the splintered wreckage that had become of the treants. “So how do we tap into them?”

Angelica shrugged. “I imagine the same way we just did. It’s apparent that my shin-buto works on wyrd, and strengthens it. Yours feed off your need to protect, or your command, and makes you a better fighter.”

Jovian scowled. “Are we sure?”

But before Angelica could respond there was a jingling sound behind them, and they turned to see what was happening. Like curtains being drawn back, an opening in the large trunk parted, emitting a flickering, golden light from beyond.

“Looks like that just proved it,” Angelica said, and then smiled.

Jovian looked down at his sword, his mouth agape. Shaking himself, he came back to his senses, sheathed his sword, and followed Angelica into the trunk before the opening could slip shut. Once he was inside, the way back closed in a rush, and a slip of light along the opening sealed it. They were in the middle of a hall that extended around a very gradual bend to the left and right. To their left were only shadows; to their right was the warm glow of a fire.

Without words Angelica pointed to their right. Jovian nodded, and so they set off toward the light. As they followed the hall Jovian tried to conjure the feeling of protection inside of him again, but couldn’t seem to. He wasn’t sure why; maybe because he doubted it? Maybe because there wasn’t any threat to make him feel protective at the time? He placed his hand to the ivory pummel of the shin-buto again, and he could now feel the sword like a living being under his palm.

That’s strange,
he thought. It hadn’t been like that before. He’d never felt the swell of power through the sword before like he did now, but there he was, traveling toward the ever-strengthening light, feeling the sword like a slumbering consciousness under his hand.

As the hall continued around the inside of the tree, Jovian slipped his channels of wyrd open and tried to pry a conduit open between himself and the sword. Oddly, he felt his wyrd slip into the sword, travel down the length, and then back up into his hand. He shivered.
That’s right, the sword doesn’t work by wyrd, it reflects it.
That wasn’t the way to activate his sword, but it seemed to be all Angelica needed to do.

How in the Realms do I project my need for protection into the sword?
But there was an answering sensation from the sword.
Danger.
He placed his hand on Angelica’s shoulder and pulled her to a stop.

“Wait,” he whispered, scanning the hall behind him, which disappeared into shadows. Was there something behind them? He turned to the right and tried to scry what was ahead, but as they traveled further into the tree the hall became more and more like a spiral, and the bends became increasingly sharper. He figured they were traveling to the center of the tree, but not just to the center. The gradual decline of the ground around them told Jovian they were also traveling
down
, not just in.

“What is it?” Angelica asked after several moments.

“I thought I felt something,” he answered. “Never mind, it’s nothing.”

She started walking again, and he analyzed the sensations coming from the sword. By the time the spiral of the hall opened up onto a large set of stone stairs, Jovian had his answer. Only through danger was he able to wake the power of the shin-buto. Only then would he have a true
need
for protection.

He released his hold on the sword and focused his attention forward. The stairs continued down at a steeper rate than the hall had. As they went further and further down, the spiral of the stairs became greater, as if the spiral had reached its center, and now they were traveling back out to the edges of the tree.

Soon the wall to the left dropped away, and the source of the fire could be seen. There was the familiar sound of bubbling fluid, and a huge shadow huddled over an equally large cauldron. The mountainous shape was familiar to them. As they reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out onto the loose gravel of the floor, they could almost see the lumpy shape of a face in the shadows of the hood. But all that Jovian could actually see was a bulbous, hooked nose darting out of the recesses of the hood.

Baba Yaga of the Swamps acted as though she didn’t know they were there. She turned, took a box off the shelf, and shook it several times. Within they could hear a menacing hiss that sounded incredibly large, and incredibly dangerous. Baba Yaga turned the box over, opened it, and dumped a writhing snake into the bubbling mixture. Fresh screams fountained into the air even as gold and green sparks showered upward.

With a weathered hand, Baba Yaga scooped the sparks toward her and her giant nostrils flared as she inhaled the tragedy that was happening within her blackened cauldron. As the sparks flirted with the edges of her nose, Jovian thought he could see it become less pockmarked, healthier, maybe even younger. He scowled, remembering how the first Baba Yaga they had met had grown younger from an inky blue flower.

“So it’s my turn at you, is it?” Baba Yaga asked in the creaking, wizened voice they had come to associate with her.

“This is where we were brought,” Angelica said.

“I know of you,” Baba Yaga said. “I won’t entertain your endless questions, and I won’t be hospitable. You aren’t as welcome here as you were with my sisters.”

Jovian reached for his sword once more, but he felt as though the hag were watching him, and he dropped his hand away.

“That’s a wise decision,” Baba Yaga said. “My sisters and I are the mistresses of wyrd, the guardians at the crossroads of death and life. Your puny human weapons would do nothing against me.”

“Then why are we here?” Jovian asked.

“Because my sisters have given you a gift, and so will I.” She turned to the shelves behind her and gathered from them two bundles of folded fabric. One was blue, the other was green. She tossed them at Angelica and Jovian.

Jovian caught the green one and turned it around in his hands. “It’s fabric.”

“Very astute. I’m glad your LaFaye bloodline has gifted you with such a keen intellect.”

But Angelica was already opening her package. Inside glittered a spark of blue fire.