Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2) (5 page)

Layna looked from Charles to Gryffon who both
shrugged and started after the woman so Layna followed. Despite her
age, the woman was quite spry and she led them briskly through the
woods. She eventually pushed aside a curtain of vines to reveal a
beautiful clearing which held a small cottage. Flowers of every
color filled the clearing, with the stone walkway that led to the
front door the only section of ground without vegetation. A
wonderful smell filled Layna's senses as they made their way
towards the house.

The woman opened the door and led them in,
indicating that they take seats around the table. They sat and
watched her curiously while she hummed and bustled around, setting
bowls in front of them which she proceeded to fill with a delicious
smelling soup. When they were all served, she took her own seat and
started eating. After a few spoonfuls she looked up at them,
seeming surprised to suddenly find people at the table with
her.

“Oh my, where was I?” She bit her lip and
tapped her spoon on the table in concentration. “Well, don't let
your dinners get cold, I'll sort myself out presently.”

They all picked up their spoons and Layna saw
Gryffon whisper something inaudible over the soup, nodding to her
and lifting the spoon to his mouth, letting Layna know that it was
safe to eat. She lifted her spoon as well.

“Ah,” Aileen said. “Now I've got it. You are
trying to get across the border to escape from the King and warn
Treymayne of the growing threat.”

Three spoons simultaneously stopped short
their motion and the people holding them sat tensely, waiting for
her to go on. She paused again. “You must excuse me, this is all
very new and it's hard to keep it all organized.” She narrowed her
eyes as if listening to something hard to make out and then said,
“Let's start at the beginning. My name is Aileen, I am part of a
very old group who we call the Hyrdraeden. We’ve been watching the
game unfold and have decided that it is time that we play a more
direct role in the proceedings. Since the beginning of your time
there has been an evil slumbering at our feet which we - the
Hyrdraeden - are sworn to prevent from rising forth. Once already
it has come perilously close, and we are afraid that this time it
has gotten too far already to simply put back to sleep.”

“What kind of evil?”

“The one you call the Sleeping God.”

Layna almost spit out the spoonful of soup
she was about to swallow. The god that the noble class had
converted to following was this woman’s slumbering evil? “Excuse
me?”

“Indeed, your religions have gotten quite
convoluted over the years. Not that it was ever supposed to have
been that way in the first place…”

“So what are we supposed to do, ask people to
stop praying that the Sleeping God will wake?”

“Child, they are doing much more than
praying. There is an object that is needed for his full awakening:
A Bloodstone that his essence is trapped within. The Hyrdraeden has
kept it hidden and safe for years, separated by the barrier from
those who could use it. But recently it was…” she paused, taking a
deep breath and looking forlorn, “discovered missing. I have had to
isolate myself from Treymayne and was therefore unable to
personally oversee its protection.”

“Are you one who could use it?”

“No,” Aileen answered, scrunching up her
face, “Well, I suppose yes, but that’s not why I needed to stay in
Gelendan. Regardless, I feel responsible for its disappearance and
we need to act quickly to remedy the situation. I fear that it has
already been brought into the country, I can feel its aura. The
barrier has failed. It is imperative now that we open the lines of
communication, as you three have already come to the conclusion on,
to Treymayne. There are those there who will be able to help
us.”

“I thought the reason for the barrier was to
protect the people.”

“It was. To protect all people.”

“So what does this have to do with the King?
“

“He is one who might seek to control use of
the stone. And if he finds it, from what we’ve seen he
will
try and use it. Had I known earlier…” she trailed off and then
fixed her gaze on Layna. “You and he have a great deal in common.”
Layna’s blood froze in her veins. What was Aileen saying, that
because of her ancestry of the Dark King, that she was capable of
awakening this great evil? That she might want to? She shuddered
and looked away.

“What do you mean by that?” Gryffon demanded,
his tone slightly hostile.

“Only that they both are extremely strong
talents. The strongest to have ever walked this world perhaps.
Certainly both with the ability to change the course of events. For
better or for worse.” She said the last softly, eyeing Layna as
though measuring her. Layna resolutely avoided making eye contact.
Saying that she might be one of the strongest mages in the world
was ridiculous. She was a maid.

“I really don’t think…” she began, but Aileen
cut short her protests.

“You will need to start to think, and think
hard. Will you let the evil inside of you manipulate your actions,
or will they be your own?”

“How dare you talk to her like that?”
Gryffon’s voice wasn’t just hinting at hostility anymore and he
rose swiftly from the table, leaning forwards onto it in a menacing
stance towards Aileen.

She watched him for a moment before focusing
her eyes on Layna, then turning her whole head towards her. It had
an eerie effect that made Layna shiver. “We can take no chances,”
she stated, “the mark you bear is powerful, and is much more than
just a symbol. Bearing it shall be no easy task. The lure to its
power is great and it will get harder to withstand as the evil
grows stronger. The evil must be stopped soon.” Her eyes seemed to
bore into Layna.

Layna's breath caught in her throat. A cold
nose nudged at her fingers, and she realized she had them clasped
together quite tightly in her lap. She pried them apart to stroke
Weylyn's head which was now resting on her leg. The memory of the
pain he had endured at the hands of Jezebel, in the name of
blood-magic, floated to the surface of her consciousness and her
anger flared anew.
No!
She would never give into a
temptation of power that would cause her to inflict such pain on
another living creature. She would never kill hundreds of innocent
people because they were ‘unworthy’. She was
not
evil.

“Layna does not have an ounce of evil in
her,” Gryffon declared, echoing Layna’s own thoughts.

Aileen was still staring at her, her eyes
searching, and Layna clenched her teeth together determinedly,
staring back at the woman in defiance.

“No,” she agreed after a long pause, “I
believe you are correct. But I had to be sure. In which case, we
need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“We?” asked Gryffon incredulously.

“Yes, we,” Aileen said firmly. “The barrier’s
magic has been altered so that no one can get through, as you found
today. You will need my help if you hope to pass.”

Aileen’s demeanor was unusual to say the
least, and Layna wasn’t sure she believed her story about the
Bloodstone and the Sleeping God, and she was sure she was mad when
she said that Layna was one of the strongest mages in the world,
but she obviously did not approve of what was going on with
blood-magic and the King and she seemed to want them to get to
Treymayne to beg their assistance as well. If their end goal was
the same did it really matter if some of the woman’s beliefs were a
bit farfetched? Layna didn't know the answer, but they needed help
and here it was presenting itself to them. They would be foolish
not to accept it.
I hope. I hope we are not being foolish to
accept it
.

“How do you plan to help us pass?” Gryffon
asked.

Aileen was silent, rubbing her chin with a
gnarled finger. “We'll have to take it down,” she said definitively
after a long moment.

“You can do that?” Gryffon asked.

“Well of course,” she stated
matter-of-factly. “I helped put it up.” Gryffon and Layna

exchanged a look.

*

Karl was still mulling over the mysterious
disappearance of his daughter and the events which were taking
place within the Order as he absently looked over the latest
reports from his business.
And to top it all off, I've had this
string of bad luck
. He tossed the papers into a drawer, and
thumped his fist on the table in annoyance.

This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen
to him. He'd had his little pet visit a few people he had been sure
had been behind the accidents, but so far the bad luck had been
continuing. He had at first wondered if it was a sign, but the
priests assured him that he was still devout in the eyes of the
Sleeping God. Therefore, it must be earthly beings causing him such
trouble, and he fully intended to find out who it was so he could
crush them. He felt his tenuous control slipping through his
fingers.

The events transpiring within the Order were
disturbing, and it was now evident that there were more people
orchestrating the assignments than there were supposed to be. He
wondered just how out of control it had really gotten. There was
much riding on the successful completion of their plans, and it
would be a horrible mess if it were to get out of hand. They had
carefully regulated experiments being conducted into some of the
old ways, but it was a precarious position to be in without the
support of the King and consequent propaganda to the commoners. If
they found out that simple forms of blood-magic were being used,
even in a small degree, it could cause a mass outrage. They could
potentially have a revolt on their hands, and that was something
that Karl and his peers were not wont to deal with.

He'd gained an interesting, though
disturbing, piece of information while conducting his investigation
into Jezebel's disappearance, one that gave him further proof of a
mole within the Order's ranks: Jezebel had been raising a pack of
hellhounds on one of the country manors before she had disappeared
-
On one of my manors! She must be trying to ruin me.

After an extensive inquiry into the matter,
it was discovered that the orders to prevent Jezebel’s culling from
the herd of specimen, support her candidacy for the council, and
include her in the bloodbeast project had all come from a colleague
of his. Karl had been irate, and had immediately insisted that this
colleague’s identity be revealed so that he could be questioned as
to his reasons for these actions. His peers had agreed and a full
examination of the situation was conducted. Unfortunately, what it
revealed had been even more troubling.

The man was dead, and from the state of decay
of his corpse, he had been that way for quite some time. It begged
the question: Who had been giving orders in his name? And
furthermore what other instructions had been given? Hopefully the
lock-down that Karl had ordered would help quell some of the
mischief that had been set into motion and give them a chance to
weed out the thorn in their midst. He really didn’t have time to
deal with moles within the Order when he had his hands full with
his own problems at the moment.

Karl banged open the drawer and shuffled
through the papers once more, squinting at the scribbled notes.
Hmm...perhaps I'll have my pet visit the supplier. It seems he's
benefiting from my losses more than he should be.

*

Katya sat on the edge of the fountain and
dipped her finger into the cool clear water. She watched as the
rings expanded and dispersed outwards in an intricate pattern as
they collided with the ripples caused by the falling water from the
opposite side. Birds chirped around her and the breeze blew coolly
over her bare neck. She closed her eyes in relaxation.

Though her eyes were closed, she was
completely aware of her surroundings - as she always was - and
therefore she knew that someone had joined her in the garden even
before she heard the twig snap. She felt a tugging around her neck
and she sighed in resigned annoyance.

She rose to her feet fluidly and slipped
soundlessly through the garden to emerge in front of her owner. He
gave a slight start before he caught himself, causing Katya to
smile inwardly.

Apparently, he decided that she had seen his
cringe despite the neutral expression that her trained face always
wore, and he curled his lip at her. He drew back his hand to hit
her.

She had plenty of time to move out of the
way; his motions were pitifully slow compared to her own, but she
didn't flinch. The open hand connected hard with her cheek and
Katya let her head be thrown sideways, closing her eyes for a
moment before lifting her head back towards him. She raised her
eyes to meet his with a bored stare.

Katya caught the flicker of fear that passed
across his face before he wrinkled it into a grimace at her. “You
know I don't like it when you keep me waiting,” he growled, “I have
a job for you.”

Katya simply nodded, but she was worried. He
had been using her services quite often lately and even with her
unique skill of creating accidents, people were bound to be getting
suspicious. That made her job that much more dangerous. If she was
caught, her owner would deny all knowledge of her, and with no one
to protect her she would be hung like the regular killers out on
the street. Not that she wasn't very capable of getting herself out
of trouble, but she knew what kinds of things the officials were
using these days and her collar denied her the use of her magic
when not expressly allowed. She had no desire to let them try out
any of their new toys on her.

Karl had been experiencing a myriad of bad
luck lately, and he had been pulling at straws to try and find who
was behind it. He sent Katya as his messenger each time he decided
that he had finally discovered the culprit, only to have another
shipment go bad.