The Song of Terra pounded through Val’ha. She opened her eyes but did not breathe; she was underwater, its current swift against her back and pushing her forward by inches. She never learned to swim with only a small stream near her homestead on Mount Carias, and regretted it now. The water did no harm to her eyes, but all was darkness. She guessed herself in a river, and tried to walk along the current toward the bank, but soon gave up and inhaled from reflex. At that moment she expected to take water into her body, but was amazed when she breathed instead fresh air. She pushed panic from her mind and sought again to reach the riverbank.
At last her head reached above the water, now greenish under the starry night. Val’ha slogged to its wood-bordered shore and sat. A band of gold around her left finger, inlaid with four small purple stones, gleamed in the starlight; a voice boomed around her. "Kephu’mir, recev jou de’hadrin, au’circ Shela’i. Am’i vis." "Val’ha, take this gift from me, your father; it is the Ring of Ashley, Goddess of Water. I love you."
Val’ha stood, speaking to the trees and the river. "Am’i vis, pir’th Ma’hadrin. I love you too." She returned to the water and gave herself to its flow.
**
When Val’ha awoke next morning with Ma’hadrin’s words still in her mind, she could almost not believe him the source of the dream-voice and that she spoke to him, but here the four-stone ring circled her finger. The Men still slept, their breathing heavier for the ale they consumed. Val’ha arose from her berth, retrieved her writing materials and took them to the galley table to document the exchange with her father. Streams of dawn played through the porthole and someone had cleaned up from the prior evening.
What am I to do with the Ring of Ashley that lets me breathe in water? Trisahn will ask about it, or Sir Thoryn, and am I to tell them I have taken flowers and this ring from my dreams? How is this possible?
Val’ha took off the ring and turned the stones to catch the light rays, withdrew the Denlineilian coin sack from around her neck and put the ring inside. It gave a tink next to the silver and Val’ha lowered the sack back under her tunic. Purple stones, lavender flowers. Father’s pyre-glow. His dweemtweezle water. So this is the color of his magic as mine is green. And I am Kephu’mir."Good morning, Val’ha," Eedebee called from behind; Val’ha froze for a moment, returned the greeting and rolled her papyrus scroll up. "Oh, I am sorry to interrupt."
"No, Eedebee, I was finished. Please sit down."
Eedebee joined her at the table. "This is the best part of the day, when Terra is quiet but for the Song – the breeze, the water. My spirit is lightest at this time."
Val’ha smiled. "Your industry as well, from your work here."
Eedebee gave a low laugh. "Yes, that as well. Would you like some fruit to eat or drink?"
"Drink?"
Eedebee moved toward the larder and withdrew two mugs and a tall tin from which she poured a reddish liquid. "Squeezed tomatoes from the Moncrovian market. Cheers." Eedebee and Val’ha joined their mugs. "I saw you no desire for some foods like Humans do – meat, ale."
"The meal last night was sufficient, and I enjoy your bread and this drink and wine. My father Ma’hadrin told me before I met Humans that many mortal beings require the meat of other animals to survive. It is strange – the birds and beasts have been friend, not prey, to my family."
Eedebee sipped her drink. "I offer again my regret at being silent about myself and my ship."
"If anything, it was curiosity on my part – the High Wizarder tells us what is necessary and would have done so with the Bugbear, so do not despair any longer, at least for me, of your revelations last night. Perhaps the Baroness may be harried, but I find her to be discontented with almost everyone here." They shared a laugh.
"While I was at the docks those days, Lady Val’ha. I must tell you that word of your deeds at Castle Ohrt was already carried from the royal palace down to the harbor, and many spoke of your posse’s victory over Feukpi and his creatures. Do not be surprised if you are recognized in the city by strangers."
"Indeed." Val’ha was unsure what to think but for the appreciation of the assemblage at the King’s feast. "I would think only A’crasti would be on the tongues of the Moncrovians."
"True enough, but you are his saviors, and that creates its own fame."
"Fame." The Baroness, dressed in a loose brown shirt, pants, boots of snakeskin and a white belt from which hung her sword, startled Val’ha and Eedebee, pulled a mug from the wall and, sniffing the drink tin on the table, poured herself tomato-juice and sat. "Fame is an illusion. Fame – pah! All is forgotten in time. Fame and power – do not go seeking these things, Val’ha, they are the seeds of a bitter autumn. And good morning to you both."
"Good morning, Baroness," they replied.
"I wanted to tell you, captain, I had reconciled both this pittance of an accompaniment provided by the king" – here she nodded toward Val’ha – "and the Baron’s choice of that fool Nopaach-to as our mapper, but I now express my most profound disappointment in you – I almost ordered my own servants to come aboard for crew when I saw only you. When you are on my commission, you will not keep such secrets to yourself if we are ever to use your services again in the future, am I quite clear?"
"Yes, and I extend to you once more my apology," Eedebee answered evenly.
"Sweet girl, that is almost sufficient, but I will meet with the King’s wizard on the subject of his poor judgment.
"Now, Val’ha, my beloved spoke to you of my goals on this journey." Not knowing to which she referred, Val’ha nodded. "I do not expect after two and a half centuries that there dwells any life upon the island. I am fully aware, however, of the un-life that may yet be there and expect your full cooperation in the matters of accompaniment and extermination. Now tell me, for my curiosity exceeds my mothers-wit, of the affairs to which you are most interested on this journey, and how I may help."
Encouraged, Val’ha recounted to the two Women the final instructions of the High Wizarder: "The story of what became of Lord and Lady Sipsids is almost too sad to endure. For their love, so true that it moved the king to free all the slaves of his lands, they were punished by the jealous Xorus, who used his black magic to kill them on the very night of their troth and the day Lord Sipsids turned forty and his Lady thirty. Their entire family, but for Xorus’ death six years later, would have perished, the elders living out their lives and the children, males at forty and females at thirty, dying in their sleep until no more Sipsids lived.
"When the Lord and Lady had been buried and the others fled the island after Xorus appeared with his threats and enmity and all that remained were the dead, he took up residence in Sipsids Manor. The demon-goddess Dimatox answered his calls and one day he awoke to find in his bed an opal the size of a fist, his birthstone and perfectly rounded and shaped.
"Xorus was certainly not the most powerful wizard, good or bad, in his time, but above all else he wished for, lived for, domain over the Song of Terra. The goddess again heard his incantations, and in the weeks that followed, Xorus ruminated on the stone and there came to him knowledge of the Song and how to command it. He raised a shroud of fog that until this year kept the island hidden and spent the last six years of his mortal life stewing in his wickedness. The creatures that lived on the island – bears, birds – died or were destroyed by him, but more dangerous, with his necromancy and perversion of the Song, Xorus brought back the dead to serve him. Servants, relations and others, he raised them all and they dragged themselves out of Terra, many just bone and skull, but some only recently buried and more hideous for their rotten flesh.
"For Lord and Lady Sipsids he saved his worst treachery. Though their bodies he let lie, he captured in his shroud their eternal spirits on journey to Convah and locked them in separate glass-traps. His undead dug ever deeper through the floor of the manor into the island, until at last a prison deep enough to Xorus’ satisfaction had been reached, and in this dungeon he placed their spirits and gloated, the lovers’ spirits only inches apart but kept from each other and from spending everness in Convah together.
"The birthstone and, it is said, body of Xorus no longer remain on the island, for in his dying moments Xorus called once more upon his wicked goddess and where his remains went is a mystery, but encased in their glass, unable to touch, unable to be together, Lord and Lady Sipsids cry out sometimes, mariners have heard over the centuries, cries from the island of such sadness and pain, for there is no greater agony than to be parted from one’s true love.
"The hex on the rest of the family, like many of Xorus’ mortal curses, did not last beyond his years and after he was killed the Sipsids thrived in southern Conschala. But alas, now their dark destiny has come alive again with the return of the Black God. It is your task to destroy the glasshouses and let loose the lovers’ spirits so that they may join as one in Convah. Remember, in freeing the spirits of Lord and Lady Sipsids that they may be together forever you will find your solution." A long moment passed as the three gazed at the table and listened to the Bugbear slicing through the sea. The Baroness attempted to talk and cleared her throat.
"I wish I could help you." Eedebee wiped a tear onto the green sleeve of her dress. "The High Wizarder told me too of this."
Just then Val’ha realized her last words even as the Baroness spoke, seeming to read her mind. "The curse has come alive again with the return of Xorus, you say? Explain yourself – I was unaware of the Dark God’s coming."
Val’ha imagined the High Wizarder’s fury at her for breaking their vow of silence on Xorus’ second incarnation, but then she wondered, If such knowledge were private from all but the King and us, why would the wizard tell a ship’s captain? and determined that after they saw him last, he must have decided in telling one so random as Eedebee that the secret was too great to hide anymore and safety paramount. Sir Thoryn will be gratified for the public edict. With that, she told Eedebee and Baroness Val Tress that the Loran wizard Gargantua obtained the birth-opal and assisted Xorus in his reentry into Terra, the resurrection of the Xoran curses, his possession of Feukpi and others of evil spirit, his desire for the Swords of Ariadne and finally, drawing her breath, of his port fire. "We think – Thoryn, Trisahn and I – that Eedebee, you were the reason Xorus attacked the port, and this is why we needed to know where you were those days. Since you were our suspicions are confirmed."
"Convah," the Baroness said with alarm. "Do you know what you say?" Val’ha nodded. "Dear Elf, you say you came from the mountains only weeks ago, so no, I do not think if what you say is true that you do. What do you know of gods and saints?"
"That there are houses of good and evil and our spirits go to Convah, where Zeus resides, or to Terr’des. Those with unfinished business on Terra stay in the limbic realm, with the ability to return, but none besides the messenger-gods may themselves enter our realm but through conjuration."
"As Gargantua has Xorus," offered Eedebee.
"So here Xorus is, watering his garden of curses to new life, possessing the wicked and you say in command of the Song, the highway of the gods’ powers into our world? If Gargantua has still the birthstone, we must destroy it, for history states that such a stone allowed Xorus portal to Terra when he first tried to capture the Swords a hundred years ago. When we have the stone from Gargantua, we rip out his tongue so he may never conjure any demons again!" Val’ha agreed, but reported that the Order of the Sages, according to the High Wizarder, had reserved that task for themselves. "Pah! Them? Locked in their castle towers communing themselves into ivory oblivion? Useless lot!"
"Val’ha," Eedebee asked frantically, "I was the target of Xorus’ fire?"
"Great fright, Val’ha." Sir Thoryn and Trisahn stood at the galley door, for how long Val’ha did not know. Thoryn’s voice shook. "Why have you told so much?"
**
After several confused minutes during which Val’ha debated with the Men about her revelations and the Women put in their own facts, the clamor awakened Nopaach-to and Andy and they ceased arguing. Eedebee brought out breakfast and the explorers, Val’ha wrote later, gratefully did not seem aware of any turmoil.
Later that day, the Baroness offered her services to Val’ha while they were above deck, the Isle of Sipsids and its mountain beckoning only hours away. Other islands lay far off to the north and south of Sipsids, shunning the cursed land by their distance. It was early afternoon, and Eedebee proclaimed her gratitude for Lord Igor at arriving earlier than expected. She steered the Bugbear toward the northernmost tip of the island at Nopaach-to’s request, and by the end of the day the mappers had begun charting, Nopaach-to eyeing the island’s perimeter with an array of tools – sextants, a compass, measuring sticks, and most importantly, a seeing-glass from the Leictanian Republic.
For the remaining hours of light, Eedebee brought them southward along the shoreline while Val’ha enjoyed the breeze and wrote in her journal. Nopaach-to conversed in measurements to Andy and the apprentice, his scrolls rolled out against a wooden tablet, quilled with precision a miniature of the coastline and mountain contours, sometimes taking Nopaach-to’s tools at his master’s request to verify some piece of information or other.
The mountain, half-mile high black folds of rock and caves, was lifeless and occupied a good deal of the island, rising directly from the dark-stone ground several hundred feet from the water as if dropped there by the gods. The vegetation on the island consisted of sparsely dispersed barkless ash trees and heather, pallid and blue-green, with no birds or beasts to be seen or heard. Despite this, Sir Thoryn with Trisahn, and the Baroness – who had among her possessions a crossbow – crafted themselves small fishing harpoons using Val’ha’s Elf-rope and their own arrows. "If there are any fish in the sea around here," the Baroness declared, "we shall eat well tonight!"
Unsuccessful in their attempts, that evening they ate fruit, meats and bread from Eedebee’s larder before a surprise dessert of sweetmeats and wine, which Val’ha joined in drinking until trisahn crept to its highest point in the night sky. Nopaach-to and Andy, elated at their progress, inspired their companions to jollification before all retired to their rooms. Val’ha doused the tinder-candle after Thoryn and Trisahn drew their blankets and took to her own berth. "Val’ha," said Thoryn in the dark. "I am sorry for my anger toward you."
"I cannot justify my action to you, Sir Thoryn, but thank you."
"By your admission," Trisahn said, "if that pretty little maid Eedebee can be told, I am happy there are others to share our story and thank you, sweet Val’ha – perhaps we can enlist the Baroness and her resources."
"She already offered to help us find the Lord and Lady’s glasshouse prisons."
"Very good then. Goodnight, Val’ha and Thoryn."
**
The weather stayed clement and the island foliage unchanged for the next three days, although the mountain retreated into the land. The shoreline headed west to a jagged, rocky point where the ruins of a sentry-house sat, after which the island went generally eastward into a series of coves, the mountain now some distance off to the north. The coves, forming a crescent Nopaach-to named "King Joel IV Inlet," returned west to a place where the sandy coast grew dark; Nopaach-to called this "Iron Ash Beach."
Three days more brought them around the southern portion of the island; the peninsula was low in landscape with black-and-white stone cover and fiords breaking at its northernmost. Only a small stretch of land, it turned out, separated the main body of Sipsids and "Peninsula Arenmi-to" (from the name on Andy’s cartograph). At the end of their second fiord, everyone but Eedebee left the ship – a small body of water, Father Lake, was visible and the mappers desired to get the details of the lake, which had its own island. They spent two days outlining the smaller, lifeless bodies, eating rations Eedebee packed for them, before returning to the Bugbear. "Mount Nopaach-to" lay to the northwest now and the foliage returned, though there were still no sky or land creatures.
They cast off the second of the "Nopaach-to Fiords" and Val’ha watched Eedebee navigate around and back through the narrow channel on the morning of the eleventh day of their journey. Trisahn, more agitated since the mapping of the lake, joined her. "Val’ha, are you not weary as I am? It is Mocrolester 2, and we have until tomorrow night, less than two days now, to find the wretched manor, much less free its spirits."
"We must be near," Val’ha reassured him, feeling the emptiness of her words in her heart. She shivered wondering how Guinivere from the house of Sipsids would be anticipating the coming of the hour of her thirtieth birthday. "We might ask Nopaach-to to cease his mapping with the little time we have left. Let us see how today proceeds."
**
The day proceeded well; Nopaach-to completed the third fiord and the Bugbear made excellent progress northward along the zigzag shoreline until on the following morning, as Val’ha and Trisahn cleared the breakfast table, they heard the Baroness cry from the deck: "We have arrived! There are ruins!" Eedebee propelled the Bugbear into a small cove where the water was darker than general; around its slate-rock shore to the left grew the island’s two-colored heather, as well as oak, ash, elm and jacaranda trees, some living, others dying and bare. On the facing shore, at a point where the land receded into a narrow triangular shape, an overgrown rock trail led inland; to the trail’s right stood a dock, its wood weathered but in fair shape. The rest of the cove to the southeastern point continued with the same rock and flora.
Above the trees on a hill rose the Sipsids Manor, in remarkable condition for its legends, a lower wall in front, all in the black rock of the island. A portion of the left wall of the manor had fallen, with a smaller building to the left collapsed as well. The mountain ascended almost directly over it all. Eedebee maneuvered toward the dock, but the Baroness ordered her in a low, harsh manner to bring the ship to a stop, several hundreds yards out. "What is the matter?" Val’ha followed the Baroness’ extended finger; yellow-pink heads bobbed in the water, whiskered faces and large, round eyes deep as slate. Atop their heads two antennae projected between their ears, and for every head, another faced behind it in the opposite direction.
"They are water-leapers," Nopaach-to whispered, "protecting their lairs."
"Everyone below deck," instructed Eedebee. "I can cloak the ship and get by them, but you must all be below deck." The Baroness grunted and followed the others down-hatch.
They stood in the hallway separating the ship’s rooms when the Baroness scoffed again and strode into her room – "I shall have none of these creatures on my property to retrieve her crossbow and arrows," she announced – and advanced with her crossbow and arrows to the upper deck. Trisahn checked his daggers and followed her.
"Baroness!" Eedebee screamed, and a sudden cacophony of shrill squeaks that hurt Val’ha’s ears joined the captain’s call.
"Get your weapons, we are seen!" Nopaach-to shouted, his robes vanishing aboveboard. Andy retreated to his room and Val’ha joined Sir Thoryn in retrieving her scimitar and his sword, bow and arrows, unsure of the danger posed by the water-leapers.
Up on deck, the Baroness launched her arrows toward the water, roiling with dozens of water-leapers in the space between ship and shore. Val’ha wanted to cover her ears for the pain of their shrieks when two of the leapers shot high out of the water and arced through the air toward the Bugbear, flipping with great might and a head on each end of their long bodies. Val’ha stepped back and drew her scimitar above her head the moment one of the beasts came at her, ducked, and sliced it in half as it flew over. Its blood splattered on her and the two pieces landed on the deck, flopping about.
Thoryn aimed his arrow at the other leaper and pierced its middle, stopping its flight and sending it to its kin below. Other leapers landed on the deck, wing-like flippers maneuvering them toward the shipmates, double-row teeth bared. The Baroness caught another with her crossbow and joined Sir Thoryn back at the side of the ship to kill those in the water. Nopaach-to aimed his projectiles in the same direction, and as the water-leaper deaths grew, so did their panicked screeches.
Trisahn stood near Eedebee, who kept the ship on course toward the dock while jumping about to escape the sliding water-leapers. He threw his dagger at the head of one of the beasts and it went limp, only for the other half to circle its flippers around and leap at him with amazing grace. Sir Thoryn turned long enough to aim one of his arrows between the eyes of the other head, killing it. "Well done, friend!" called Trisahn.
Val’ha and Andy moved backward when three of the water-leapers lunged at them. They each stabbed a leaper through the middle, but the third reached Andy’s shin and bit deep, causing him to cry out; Val’ha severed it in half. Andy tried to shake his dead attacker free before Val’ha managed to pry off its jaws and push it away. Blood gushed down his shin, and he swooned against the ship. As Val’ha removed the torn fabric to reveal the wound, her hands began to tingle and glow green; she placed them over the gash and Andy’s wince turned to amazement when after another few moments, the wound vanished.
Val’ha stood just as another water-leaper hurtled through the air directly into her head. They crashed together on the deck and she passed out.
**
Val’ha looked up from the deck into the sky, the circle of heads around her showing concern to consternation. Trisahn helped her up. "You have been out for a couple of minutes."
She retrieved and resheathed her scimitar; Eedebee had reached the dock, and only the stain of the water-leapers’ blood remained on the deck. Behind them the carnage of dead leapers floated and Val’ha guessed but for its blackness, the water would be red. "I will have none of these creatures on my island," the Baroness announced, "especially here, and we intend full restoration of this estate. Do not send me below deck, Captain, when dangerous rodents need extermination from my harbor."
Eedebee nodded, busying herself to check the Bugbear’s ropework around a dockpost. "The water is very deep here for its nearness to the shore, and from my estimation, the mooring planks are in good order."
"But you cannot step off your own ship to test your theory, is this correct?" the Baroness asked. Eedebee assented. "Then, for the rest of you, prepare to leave. And you, young Woman, clean this ship while we are gone."
**
Nopaach-to trudged through the Sipsids Manor path’s overgrowth. "I do hope that there have been none alerted by the water-leaper cries. They seem to have shattered my seeing-glass."
"Unfortunate," said the Baroness. "There is much more island to be completed."
"The glass was a gift from my father, thank you for your compassion," returned the mapper under his breath.
Trees hid any view and their going was slow in the thicket of branch and bush. Sir Thoryn and Andy led the way, slicing the foliage with their swords. "It is an interesting notion, at least," Thoryn said, "whether the undead retain the gift of their hearing, Nopaach-to, if such dwell here."
"Be on your guard, lord chatterbox," reminded the Baroness.
The path went up the hill to the outer wall of Sipsids Manor, twelve feet high and un-gated, black ivy barely distinguishable against the dark stone. Val’ha, remembering the vines of Castle Ohrt, drew her scimitar. Occupying the overrun courtyard were the collapsed building to the left, a dilapidated fountain in front of the manor and several small vine-covered sheds. Val’ha studied the terrain. "Others have walked here, but in different directions, at different times." She put her ear to Terra. "They still do, above and beneath ground – and there is a vibration, not the Song, that I do not recognize, but it lies deep under us."
"Let us not tarry with these other buildings then," the Baroness said.
The six companions made toward the front doors of Sipsids Manor, a great-bolt and lock shutting them out. "Mindless," Trisahn scoffed, rolling out his tools to work on the lock. In seconds he gave a nod of satisfaction at the same time the lock clicked. "There!" He pushed back the bolt.
The journeymates drew their weapons. Sir Thoryn and Val’ha shoved against the doors, which creaked in protest. They stepped through two at a time to check against attack. Inside, the daylight revealed a reception hall, inches of dust and silt on the floor marked by worn walkways to the closed doors right, left and ahead of them. A faint, soft blue light emanated from under the far door. "Shall we?" asked the Baroness.
They passed cobwebbed paintings of forgotten gentry, worn lounges and chairs, and red clay pots of small withered trees on their way to the door; Trisahn lit a tinder-candle he used to inspect the jamb and doorline closely. "I do not believe it to be a trap." He slowly turned the knob and pushed the door while the others aimed their weaponry.
Inside a narrow room two portals on either side of the back wall continued into dark hallways and between them, on an old ashwood great-chair, sat a luminous, tattered spirit, royal in dress, a look of sadness on his bearded face and empty sockets for eyes. At first frightened, Val’ha felt a sense from the ghost that he intended them no harm, and lifted her free hand for the others to lower their arms even as she did hers. Val’ha stepped forward, causing the spirit to straighten himself and face her. "Wh-who are you?"
When the ghost spoke, he did so with a hollow, morose depth, like an animal on its last breath. "I am Lord Geoffrey Sipsids." He slumped again.
Val’ha waited for him to say more, but he did not seem interested in them any longer. She chose her next words with care and intuition: "Is there anything that we can do for you, Lord Geoffrey?" The figure did not move. "Please – are you here by Xorus’ doing? Are you the lord of this manor?" When the figure sat quiet still, Val’ha first checked to ensure the Baroness was not wearying from the negotiation; although Val Tress kept her hand on her sword, she did not look hungry to withdraw it.
Finally, Lord Geoffrey Sipsids answered, "Who are you, she-Elf?"
"Val’ha, daughter of Ma’hadrin sent with these others to release the spirits of Lord and Lady Sipsids from Xorus’ prison. These others are Sir Thoryn, Trisahn of Denlineil, Lord Nopaach-to and Andronicus Flooher’ty, and the Baroness Val Tress, unto whose estate this island now belongs. Are you the lord of this manor?"
The ghost did not shift position, but floated several inches before returning to the great-chair. "Names, names, all names, only names. Names from so long ago, you tell me. Xorus and Ma’hadrin, and my brother and his beloved who died to be trapped here with me.
"Names. The long-ago, the long-ago, so now the Val Tress family owns what was ours. Long since anything was ours, she-Elf. The long-ago is always here, that night – the night of their betrothal. The next day, and the next, and the next!" Lord Geoffrey waved his arms about and laughed as though from under stone. "So many next days, here I am, to amuse Xorus until he was slain, and still trapped in his fog, trapped with the others down there – down here!
"I did not leave when the others did, no no, I stayed and you know why? To tend to my brother’s final affairs! His final affairs, you hear!" The laughter became thunder. "He came. He came to claim this island, now you tell me the Val Tress family has claimed this island. None claim here! None but the dead, and so I find it better that Xorus does not. Malcraft, murderer, imprisoner of spirits!
"He killed me, too, when he found me here. And in his trap I stayed, protector of Sipsids Manor and her Lord and Lady, to wander and haunt and be scorned by Xorus and his corpses and his dead things, and here I am with you, she whose father slew him and saved our family from his ruin.
"I saw them – I was there and a greater battle I never saw in my mortal life, black magic and your father’s amethyst light. Ho, the mountain shook that day!" The spirit’s revelations rattled Val’ha, and she wished to find out more about Ma’hadrin’s battle with Xorus, but asked only of Xorus’ fate. "What happened to him? What did you say, what happened? When your father cast his last assault upon the imprisoner, Xorus crawled on fours then, you know! his body dying on his island. His island!
"He took from his robe a white rock, a glowing-stone whose light surrounded his body and burned. It burned! And it burned him to a cinder and fell to the floor and glowed still in its ashpile, but before Ma’hadrin could find a way to shatter the stone, it reached such brilliance and vanished – the ashes gone, the glowing-stone gone, Xorus gone. And then Ma’hadrin left, and the long-ago is the last day, and the last day, and the last day. And in his trap I stayed. And still I haunt these halls."
"Lord Geoffrey, I must tell you that Xorus has returned and the curse on your living descendants is reborn. One of them has died already, and another is due to this very night," Val’ha revealed.
With her words, the spirit’s form enlarged to the size of the room. Lord Geoffrey boomed with the fury of his centuries-long entrapment. "MURDERER! MURDERER!" The floor shook and crashes from other parts of the manor pounded the walls. It took some time before Geoffrey resumed his original posture.
Baroness approached Val’ha from behind. "How do we know this is not a false messenger?"
"What other choice have we?" Val’ha whispered back. To the ghost she said, "Lord Geoffrey Sipsids, we come to release Lord and Lady Sipsids from their lock, and you from your sentry, and your kin for good. There will be no next day if you can help us."
"Oho, she-Elf! You will save me, you will save my kin, and no next day, and no next day? Your father could not keep the coveter, the murderer and taker, from returning to kill us again, what power do you have to do this, I demand you tell me!"
By way of his own answer the ghost levitated to Val’ha and stood in front of her, then slipped inside her; the others centered their weapons as she stumbled forward, the stab of a thousand cold icicles through her entire body. She shook by will of the ghost, felt his consciousness as much as her own, saw light blue stars, then green, opened her eyes and looked down to see herself afire in her magic-light. As quickly as he entered, the ghost pulled out of her and in a flash returned to the great-chair. "Yet you may, she-Elf. Yet you may."**
They traveled the right passage by virtue of Lord Geoffrey’s direction. "I trust your wit in this matter, young Elf," the Baroness said in the tinder-lit, empty hallway, its floors worn deep.
Val’ha could hear steady sounds from deep below and ahead of her, thump, thump, thump, and the smell of death grew with each step. There were no doors on either side of the hallway, only the way forward. "Xorus was truly intent imprisoning Lady Sipsids after she spurned him."
"If the ghost spoke truthfully," said Andy, "Xorus’ creatures kept digging and digging even after he was gone?"
"Yes," Trisahn said, lofting his candle, "I suspect their colony, whatever that may be, is under Terra as well. Even though the wizard said my blasting-horn will crush bone and stone, I dare not use it down here and add our names to the list of the doomed."
The ground began a steep ascent into Terra, with cavewalls instead of hewn. After a time their path branched into two. "What now do we do?" fretted Nopaach-to; "Lord Geoffrey said nothing of this!"
"I believe," said the Baroness, "when in a maze you always go to the right, and you find your way in – or out as fate dictates. On my estate we created labyrinths for our daughter from the hedge and one for adults."
Val’ha felt uneasy about that choice and stepped into the left passage. It was warmer, with random crackling and clicking noises; she nodded. "The Baroness is correct." They followed the right passage, which curved as it continued downward, and heard cadenced pounding.
"It sounds like they are chipping away somewhere ahead," said Sir Thoryn, "and the stench."
Nopaach-to pulled his robes tighter. "It grows cold."
Trisahn played his light around the periphery of the tunnel. "Spiders, centipedes and other insects, all pale white, by the scores and hundreds, more as we go," he added. A small swarm of white flies buzzed about the top of the cavern. "Cover your ears. – if confusion flies get in them, woe to you." He teased the flame toward the flies, dispersing them, and noticed a fissure in the right wall. "Look here."
"A natural crack, not to be concerned with." Nopaach-to strode forward, but Val’ha put her hand on his arm.
The diagonal crack was wide enough for them to pass through; from it came the mysterious vibration she detected earlier. Then she heard clicks. "Draw your weapons, both sides." Human skeletons came at them from left and right.
"Bah!" The Baroness pivoted, lifted her sword and swung at an axe-wielding skeleton; Val’ha, Andy and Thoryn joined the battle. Nopaach-to placed a high kick at a skeleton’s ribcage, dashing its bones against the cave wall where they flew in all directions.
"Trisahn, guard that crack!" Val’ha called. "Everyone, protect Trisahn!" The companions formed a circle around Trisahn and the fissure; skeletons and corpses carrying axes, hammers and swords now surrounded them.
"Aim for their skulls!" Thoryn struck the neckbones of a skeleton, slicing off its skull and sending the whole down in a pile.
Nopaach-to hand-chopped a corpse, rotten flesh and clothing still hanging from it, across the chest. An arm fell off, but the corpse lifted its other arm to aim its hammer at Nopaach-to’s head. Trisahn flung a dagger over the mapper’s shoulder. It landed between the eyesockets of the corpse, which fell backward and knocked over several skeletons, only for others to climb over them. After a time with no end of the undead in view, the Baroness faced Val’ha. "We can fight these bodies and bones until your Guinivere of Sipsids is herself buried – what do you propose we do?"
"In here! Thoryn, follow, then you, Trisahn and Nopaach-to. Baroness and Andy, come!" The Baroness grabbed two skeletons by their skulls and crushed them together before following Andy to the crevice; as the flank they continued in restricted fashion to slay the creatures that crawled behind them.
Negotiating through the jagged fissure, Val’ha kept her scimitar ready in case of assault, but none came. The vibration increased and a pinkish gleam lighted the rock. The crack ended in a domed cave with several bone piles lying in the dirt, and at its opposite side in a hollow, two narrow corked bottles – one white, one dark red – on a table. Each of her companions exited the crack and took pause at the humming pink light.
With Andy, the Baroness and Sir Thoryn battling the undead that followed them into the cavern, Trisahn put out his candle and joined Val’ha in front of the hollow. He picked up some dirt and tossed it at the table, but it hit an invisible barrier several feet in front and fell. He threw more on either side with the same result. "A wall we cannot see, Val’ha." The battle and drone nearly drowned out his words. Val’ha took her own small axe and struck the wall with it; a piece of the axe broke off and for a moment the vibration swelled. Terra shook, knocking Trisahn off his feet.
"Val’ha!" the Baroness said. "Those bottles are the glass-prisons spoken of by the wizard! You have found the Lord and Lady! Now free them!" She skullbucked a corpse’s head, sending it hurtling through the air.
"Do you want me to use my horn?" Trisahn asked.
"No! No, Trisahn, we will not get out ourselves then," Mention of the High Wizarder’s gift gave Val’ha another idea. She withdrew the box containing the Ring of Didapruvnefe from her tunic, removed the ring and placed it on her finger. In less than a second she reappeared behind the invisible wall, the drone so intense her temples pounded; she could see but no longer hear her companions. She grabbed the bottles, but the corks would not come out. Val’ha struck the glass against the rock wall, the invisible field, each other, but they would not break. Trisahn indicated confusion and she shrugged her frustration at him. She fought her rising panic, the realization they could be trapped far under Terra or worse, and closed her eyes.
Opening them, she no longer saw the cavern, but instead the green river of her dreams. It flowed fitfully this time, and she waded into it. Heads popped out of the water, water-leapers bobbing along past her, their high-pitched screams drowning out the sound of the riverflow. One bit her – Val’ha blinked from her shock and was once again behind the table looking out at Trisahn and the others, but from her own mouth the sound of the leapers, high and powerful, came.
Terra shook again, longer this time, and the bottles rattled to the edge of the table. Val’ha continued her shriek, afraid that even a breath would destroy her magic. Just as the bottles were about to topple to the ground, they burst into a thousand shards. Val’ha hid her eyes to escape the shattered glass; small bits wedged into her forearms, hands and neck.
In the next instant, the humming stopped, Trisahn pushed into the aperture and two vapors, red and white, hovered for only a second before combining into one small pink cloud. It moved as by choice toward Val’ha and stopped near her face; a feeling of relief and peace permeated her skin before the cloud wafted over Trisahn and the others out through the fissure, leaving them in complete darkness. Trisahn quickly relit his candle.
Terra boomed, and the companions tumbled left and right. The skeletons in the fissure were backing out, and pieces of rock fell from the cave roof. "Get out, everyone!" Val’ha screamed. They maneuvered back through the crack into the main tunnel; a sulfurous smoke wafted under Val’ha’s nose and Terra quaked its strongest yet. Once into the passage, they fled from where they had come. Skeletons followed, forcing the back tier of Andy, Thoryn and the Baroness to battle them in the rotten-smelling mist. Larger rocks fell, crushing some of the skeletons.
They stopped just before the branch in the passage to discover other undead pouring from it as well. Several paused for only a moment to regard Val’ha before returning to their flight. Once past the hot tunnel, Val’ha knew they would be buried alive doing battle with two streams of pursuing undead even as the path ahead of them cleared. "Trisahn, give me your horn!" yelled Thoryn, reaching with one arm toward him. "Now! Give it to me!" Trisahn removed the blasting-horn from around his waist and handed it to him. Thoryn pushed everyone forward past the fork of the two passages and positioned himself there. "Go!" he yelled, fighting back two skeletons at once. The Baroness hesitated. "All of you, go! Go!"
Val Tress flanked the others’ retreat, and Val’ha turned once more to see Thoryn stepping backward at the same time he was engulfed by skeletons and corpses. In the next second he was out of sight and some minutes later, the companions choking, the sulfur almost impenetrable, the air heated and Terra’s quaking constant, they reached the room of Lord Geoffrey’s great-chair, but he was freed and no longer there.
Val’ha wanted to wait for Thoryn, but led the others from the Sipsids Manor. Outside the undead scattered in every direction and behind her a terrain-shaking blast told Val’ha the knight had used Trisahn’s horn. Rocks rained from the sky – over the manor, the top of the mountain had blown away and orange rivers flowed from the pinnacle and holes in its side. A plume of dirty smoke mushroomed upward, leaving the sky covered in grey, and the steaming orange rock flowed around the front of the mansion, singeing to nothingness the trees and skeletons caught in its wake.
"Volcano Nopaach-to," said the cartographer in wonder. "It is a fire-mountain!"
They kept their pace slow despite an approaching lava path and rocks that hurtled through the air, hoping for a sign of Thoryn from the front entrance. When Val’ha had almost given up, through the smoke he came, charred and wounded but moving toward them swiftly. "Thoryn!"
Thoryn handed Trisahn back his blasting-horn and the six ran down the hill to the Bugbear. "With your light gone," he panted, "it did not look well good I collapsed the tunnels down onto the bones with your horn, but I drank of the wizard’s speed-potion and under its craft flew from that place!"
"I only pray to Lemoya that Lady Guinivere is celebrating her birthday," Trisahn pained; they passed through the last stretch of trees and reached the shoreline.
Eedebee awaited them, holding her hands to her chest. She caught Val’ha’s eye before motioning to her left. "Draw your weapons," Val’ha said as low as she could. A band of corpses crashed through the trees with hammers and swords. Trisahn and Nopaach-to drew their knives and swung out; Nopaach-to charged one of them at the center, plunging in his weapon and zigzagging it across the corpse’s stomach area. A mass of black rot fell out of the creature before Trisahn stabbed it through the back of its head.
One of the corpses hit the Baroness on her left shoulder. She howled and struck at the corpse’s knees, chopping off its lower legs, then struck off its head. "Baroness, get to the ship," Val’ha called, but Val Tress, blood running down her front, made at another. Thoryn kept himself close to the Baroness and swung at a corpse raising its hammer behind her, but a flying chunk of stone landed straight in the creature’s face and pummeled it back.
The lava flow reached within feet of them and caught one of the corpses, fire leaping up its sides; the corpse stood motionless and melted in cinders into the liquid rock. The six companions had the advantage of being closest to the ship, and Val’ha indicated for Andy, Nopaach-to and Trisahn to run while she, Thoryn and the Baroness held back the corpses. With the trees on fire and stones hailing on them, the corpses pursued the journeymates and tried to escape the lava simultaneously without much success, falling in the flow one by one.
As lava met the water of the inlet at several points, sending steam hissing into the air, Andy, Nopaach-to and Trisahn reached the Bugbear, brought about and released from its moorings by Eedebee, who corralled them below. Sir Thoryn leapt onto the ship and followed the other Men down-hatch just as a rock almost hit him. The Baroness next jumped and made for the lower deck entry. Eedebee grabbed Val’ha’s arm to pull her aboard when her eyes passed over Val’ha’s shoulder in horror.
Val’ha heard a grunt; one of the corpses jumped onto the dock and swung its sword at her. The Baroness stopped; Eedebee pulled Val’ha forward onto the Bugbear’s deck, where she knocked into the Baroness and the two fell. Eedebee lunged off her vessel at the corpse. When Val’ha turned, it was not Eedebee but a fearsome tiger that mauled the corpse until it no longer moved.
With the dock on fire, the tiger sprang onto the ship; Val’ha and the Baroness lifted their weapons in defense, but in the blink of an eye the cat became Eedebee again. Sweeping them below, she took the Bugbear’s helm, summoned the powers within her Elf-ring to render the ship invisible, and hastened them away from the Isle of Sipsids.
