The Unseen Tempest (Lords of Arcadia) (10 page)

Ferra slowly followed, wondering if they had made a terrible mistake coming here.

Chapter 4

“The archetype of the three wise women

predates all known uses of it in fiction, and though

its origins are lost to the ages, it is widely believed that

at some point three incredibly powerful

women provided the basis for the legend. What happened to these

women is considered to be one of the greatest mysteries

of the Nine Realms.”

The Story of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone

by Princess Scheheryār

Keeper of the Stories in the Wolflands

T
HERE
WERE
no fewer than a dozen guards pacing the outskirts of Evermore.

Kor raised a hand to halt Ater, and the dark elf felt a pang of despair as he realized how much he resembled his brother from the back. In a voice that barely made it to Ater’s ear, Kor said, “I have a feeling Nystel might suspect something.”

He nodded, knowing the time for extraneous conversation had passed. Concentrating automatically, he willed his two swords into existence in his hands. Without a word, he began to inch his way toward the guards.

The other elf put a hand up to stop him. “Why is killing something your answer to everything?” Before Ater could respond, Kor reached his hand over his shoulder, looking as if he was about to draw his bow even though there was no weapon there. The dark elf was about to tell him he had forgotten something when a bow faded in from invisibility. It was the same massive, great bow, engraved with magical runes, he had seen earlier.

“Don’t look at the arrow.” Kor warned as he pulled the string back and a glowing arrow appeared. Ater ignored the other elf, knowing one arrow would not put down a dozen guards. Kor whispered something as he pulled the arrow back. A set of runes began to glow on the bow, and the dark elf saw the arrow turn into a glowing iridescent shaft he could not look away from. Kor let the arrow fly, and Ater’s gaze followed as it moved past the guards in a wide arc. Each guard it passed was entranced and stumbled after the arrow mindlessly.

Kor put his hands over Ater’s eyes and growled. “You really can’t just follow simple instructions, can you?”

The second he couldn’t see the arrow, the spell was broken. Pulling away from the other’s hand, he snapped, “You could have warned me it was a distraction arrow.”

“It’s a distraction arrow,” Kor replied calmly, putting the bow back over his shoulder. It vanished from view when he took his hand off it. “What did you expect from a
sorcellerie
?” He bounded across the clearing, not checking to see if the dark elf was following or not.

Ater sent his weapons away and raced after the elf, keeping his mouth shut despite his anger.

Sorcelleries were elven archers who used their bows as a mystical conduit for spells. Their runes were literally carved on the surface of the weapon, limiting how many different spells they could cast, but making them devastating fighters.

They made good time away from Evermore, neither one saying a word to the other as they traveled farther and farther away from the elven homelands. Once it was clear they weren’t being pursued, the pair slowed their pace, looking for somewhere hidden to camp for the night.

It took them little time to find a small cave that had been recently abandoned by a family of bears. Kor made a quick sweep of the enclosure to make sure it was empty, and Ater covered the entrance with shrubbery so it wouldn’t be noticeable from outside. Once he was sure they were concealed, he turned around to ask Kor what their next move was.

He found himself face-to-face with a drawn arrow that was glowing blue. “What?” he asked, shocked by Kor’s move.

Kor whispered the word “
Vérité
” and let the arrow fly at the dark elf’s head.

I
HATE
falling.

Yeah, yeah, you’re sitting there going, “Well, duh, Kane, who likes falling?” To that I would answer a couple of things. One, a lot of people, because if people didn’t like it there wouldn’t be roller coasters or bungee jumpers or parachutes and all that stupid crap. I mean it; if you willingly jump out of something just to feel yourself falling, you’re stupid, and we will never be friends. Two, I would say to you, give me a freaking break because my boyfriend just pushed me into an endless hole. And though I’m sure there’s some magical thing that will stop us from crashing into the ground below us, my heart is going to explode before then, so it won’t matter after that, will it? And three, I would say that if you’re picturing that idiotic fall they show in cartoons, where someone falls down this hole that’s well lit with cabinets and shelves passing by as the someone falls, you’re wrong. Because it’s pitch-black, I can see nothing around me, and the only thing I can feel is the wind pushing against my face as I scream toward terminal velocity.

And I mean that literally. Screaming at the top of my lungs.

So I have a new fear, by the way, which replaces falling as the most horrible sensation I could feel. My greatest fear now is falling in darkness with no way to tell how fast I’m going or how far I have to fall. It’s like Falling: The Next Generation, Falling Plus, Falling Squared—oh, how I could go on, but honestly, my mind is about to turn itself off because I’m about to die from fear.

So yeah, I’m falling, and I hate it.

I can feel Hawk’s mind try to calm mine down, but I got a quick snapshot of wolves chasing us, which just gives me an image of two wolves wearing skydiving outfits falling above me. They have those goggles on and the round helmets, but it does nothing to shatter the image that there are vicious wolflike killers chasing me. Then I start to wonder how a wolf would pull the ripcord on the parachute I have him wearing, and I realize that I’ve hit some kind of wall in my head, and I’m just too scared for my own good.

There’s only so much you can take before you just give up and let whatever is going to happen, happen.

And I’m still falling.

Now I’m just pissed. I mean, how long can this hole be? Hawk’s thoughts seem to imply longer than I would think, since we’re falling between worlds. That kind of puts me in check, because I’m normally bad with distances. Multidimensional distances doubly so. Even though I can feel Hawk in my head, I wish I could actually see him, because this falling endlessly in darkness sucks.

And then I’m out.

When I say out, I mean crouching on a pretty well-groomed field of green grass. There was no jarring moment of hitting the ground or even a moment of transition; one second I was falling, and the next I was on the ground, confused. As I looked around, I could see I was in some kind of field with stands on either side, filled with… well, with
things
is the best way I could put it.

Some were human; some were animals; some, swear to God, were just everyday objects like furniture or machines that were leaning forward looking at me like I was the weird one here. Seconds later, Milo and Hawk appeared next to me, both of them crouching down on the field as well. Ruber faded into existence and floated above us all, taking the scene in the best he could.

That was when I heard the clatter of people running at us from my right.

I looked over and saw a mass of people, animals, and I think a couch, rushing at us with croquet mallets in their hands. I didn’t even bother to try to defend myself, because there was no way to get my brain to acknowledge the danger, since my brain was in the middle of thinking I had lost my mind anyway.

Milo turned his head, and I thought his eyes were going to fall out when he saw the mob descending on us. He fumbled for his pocket watch, but somehow I knew he was going to be too late for that.

“Protect,” Ruber intoned loudly, summoning a dome of pure energy over us that the frenzied croquet players slammed into headfirst. I could hear bones snapping as the first wave was crushed against the dome by the ones in back, who were still running full tilt at us. I closed my eyes at the horror as more and more faces pressed up against Ruber’s dome.

Hawk, on the other hand, wasn’t confused at all and summoned Truheart into his hand and stood over me. “Are we under attack?” he asked, throwing the question out to anyone who could answer.

“If we are, it is a dreadfully ineffective one,” Ruber commented. His shield continued to hold.

“Oh my,” Milo squeaked, his whiskers shaking as the last of the mob stopped moving against the dome. “Oh dear me.”

“Are they all dead?” I asked, my eyes still closed.

“Most are,” Hawk answered, and I got a flash of what he was seeing for half a second.

I felt sick to my stomach.

“This is not good,” Milo ranted as we waited for another wave of attackers. “I believe we have committed a great crime.”

Hawk looked down at him and asked incredulously, “One that would warrant a full-on assault?”

I had to agree with the sentiment. What in the world could we have done to get this kind of reaction so quickly? Usually people needed a couple of hours to hate us this much.

“Assault?” Milo asked, sounding confused and worried at the same time. “What assault?”

Hawk pointed at the pileup of dead bodies outside the dome. “That one?”

Milo looked at them and then back to Hawk. “That wasn’t an assault! That was croquet, you idiot!”

I’m not sure calling someone like Hawk an idiot while he had a sword in his hand was a good idea, but I do know I didn’t want to find out how bad an idea it could be. I stood up and waved Hawk off. “They seemed pretty aggressive for croquet,” I pointed out. “They look more like they were playing rugby, or maybe murderball.”

I could tell both sports meant nothing to the rabbit because his ears twitched slightly, and he scoffed. “Well, I don’t know how you play croquet where you come from, but here, battle croquet is taken very seriously. I think we just disrupted a game.”

“Battle. Croquet?” I asked slowly, wondering if somehow his words were being translated badly or something. By now I was pretty sure that even though there was magic around us that let us all speak the same language, the magic had a perverse sense of humor and liked making communication as hard as possible.

Before Milo could answer me, there was a pounding on the other side of the dome. It was muffled, but it was pretty clear someone was rapping on it. Ruber floated toward where the dome was being hit and focused his attention on the area. “Someone is using some kind of mystical force to test the barrier’s strength.”

“Drop it,” Milo said quickly. “Drop it before they mistake us for a hostile force.”

“Isn’t that a reason to keep it up?” Hawk debated.

The rabbit ignored him and looked up at Ruber. “If you don’t drop it, they will shatter it.”

Which was, of course, the wrong thing to say to the gem.

“I highly doubt that,” he commented back.

Which was the exact instant the dome shattered in a million glowing pieces, like glass made out of light. Ruber cried out and fell out of the air like a… well, crap, like a rock, I guess. Hawk assumed a defensive stance in front of us, Truheart raised. There were a dozen guards flanked around a tall man who looked like he was on the wrong side of a thousand years old. He had a long white beard that hung down, covering the front of what looked like a pretty snazzy wizard’s robe done in blue velvet. All he was missing was a pointy hat with stars on it to complete his “I am a magic kind of guy” costume. While everyone was looking at Hawk and his glowing sword, I scooped Ruber up and stashed him in my pocket. If I had learned anything in my time pretending to be an adventurer, it was you cannot have too many aces up your sleeve.

“What is the meaning of this?” Grandpa wizard asked loudly, no doubt playing for the crowd instead of us. “It is a royal crime to interrupt a game in progress.”

Both Hawk and Milo began speaking at the same time.

“It was a mistake. Please forgive us,” Milo pleaded.

“We know nothing of this realm. How can you expect us to know it’s a crime?” Hawk shouted.

The old man said nothing as they both rambled on.

“Father William, please, there are extenuating circumstances.”

“I am a member of the Arcadian royal family and demand to speak to someone in charge.”

I began to get the feeling this was worse than I thought.

When Hawk and Milo wore themselves out trying to talk over each other, they stopped and waited for Father William to speak.

“Milo Farnsworth, you are known to me. You, prince of Arcadia, are not. Ignorance of the law is not a defense against it, but as always, the final judgment lies elsewhere.”

“Oh crap,” I muttered, realizing where this was going. I leaned over to Hawk and whispered, “Seriously, change your tactic now, because if this is going down the way I think it is, we are going to get our heads cut off.” He glanced back at me, and I felt him file through my thoughts for what I was talking about. He must have gotten to the “Off with their heads” part because his eyes widened, and he looked back to Father William.