By midday the three groups were still unsuccessful. "Tarl-Cabot, have you thought how to handle the boy when you find him?" asked the Baroness. "He has been through much – the kidnapping, his time here and who can imagine what else. He has not met you and may be perplexed to say the least."
Tarl-Cabot looked at the platinum wish-ring Gregarcantz had given him. "I have not been around many children in my time here or in Azimq’haadrin, but to be father to a six-year-old is something I have been preparing myself for since the moment Tropruscht told me of Tarlos. I should appreciate any guidance you could offer."
"Most immediately, I would not tell him of your relationship to him until you are both safe together. It does strike me as a mother myself, how your former lover could dispense with her children in such regards as she did."
"She did not consider herself an appropriate mother, and so gave Tarlos to Gregarcantz to raise, and you know also she stayed in Tarlos’ life."
"What of her other sons?"
"I know nothing of Chalister," said Val’ha, "but that he might have been born while Tropruscht was queen of the medusa colony; he was intended to Lady Farron at one time and also knew Sir Quigley."
"It is obvious, then, why he was sent away!"
"As for Tim, he is a boy of thirteen grown up in the orphanage of the Holy Convent of Moncrovia." With that Val’ha told the Baroness how they had met in the sky-palace of Aentfroghe, fought against Inez and Carla and escaped, Val’ha on a carpet and Tim on his donkey-turned-flying-horse Osravulin. "He lives now in Rentville on the western coast and is apprentice to the half-Dwarf Hevoran."
"Ssssssssssooooooooooooo…!" Pivrax cried out from some distance, his distress mixed with the sound of rustling.
"Val’ha! Thoryn! Come!" said Porcie. "Everyone, I think we have found it!"
The journeymates crashed through the cornstalks back to the mudcaked rut; Thoryn’s group came from the other direction. Porcie called out until they joined him in a large circular section of the field that lay matted against Terra as if pounded down by a giant hammer.
Porcie kneeled over a hole in the ground, reaching down into it. A thin grey arm gripped his elbow and he pulled Pivrax out; Val’ha noticed that the matted stalks were interlaced with each other to form a mesh. Pivrax stood and wiped himself off. "Th-therresssss gr-greattt h-hooollle un-un-un und-derr." With excitement the companions tore the mesh covering away and when they were done stood back: A square rock-lined pit sloped on its west side to a packed ground about ten feet by twenty; the pit’s moss-laden north wall was at the deepest end and contained a doorway with the small stone figure of a hooded snake atop it.
"By the gods," whispered the Baroness, drawing her sword, "the empath of Ste. Io!" She sidled down the slope to the great-locked door, leaving the others to follow. "The hooded cobra of Azimq’haadrin, the mark of the medusa-queen. We have found our lodestar."
"Step back," Thoryn said, wiping moss from the keyhole of the great-lock. "I learned from Trisahn some ways to spot if this is a trap." He moved his hands lightly over the door as his companions ran a fruitless search of the pit. After some minutes Thoryn called the others to him; he took Val’ha by the wrist, put her hand against the doorjamb and she felt a sliver of cold breeze. Thoryn sniffed the jamb. "There could be another entrance, do you agree?"
"I am unsure what to think," she said, "since time and space do not count for much but against us."
"Good advice, but we are still outside," said the Baroness, drawing her sword over her shoulder to strike at the lock. Thoryn positioned himself between her and the door. "Fool! Move back!"
By way of answer, Thoryn reached for the snake engraving; as soon as he touched the stone it fell to the ground, revealing a small compartment. Inside lay a key that opened the crusted lock with a crunching twist. He handed Val’ha the lock and key, which she gave to Quigley, who threw it out of the pit. The companions drew their weapons; against the door’s grinding protestations, Thoryn and Tarl-Cabot pushed it in, causing dirt to dislodge and a stagnant, cold draft to whoosh out, whisking back everyone’s hair. "Who shall remain behind to guard and tend our mounts?" said Tarl-Cabot.
After a maze of glances between the journeymates, Sir Quigley plunged his swords into Terra. "I will stay. Anyone who tests me gets twice the reward from my blades!" He lifted the swords and brandished them in twin swoops and swirls. "Do not stray, do not loiter, friends."
Pivrax handed his sack of dried thistle to the knight. "Vvvvuvuu lllovesss th-these f-forr hhisss m-midday s-s-suppance."
"I will see that he gets them, Lord Pivrax."
From her pack Ma’teus removed her tinderbox and lit several small torches for herself and Pivrax to carry covered with, from what Val’ha could smell, beeswax, candlewax and tree sap in addition to several mysterious spices. With goodbyes to Sir Quigley, they ventured into the darkness of the colony.
The ground had been packed smooth and there were grooves but no footprints; the ceiling of the caveway dripped dead roots and clumps of Terra, with centipedes and a few very black spiders the only creatures living in its upside-down world. After the long corridor carved through the cold rock for a time, the companions reached a collection of caves with bonepiles and the stench of decay in them. "Each medusa had her own parlor," the Baroness said. Another stretch of cavewall brought another set of medusa lairs, but these were lined with nesting, droppings and grey fur. "These parlors have been taken over by Maxwell’s rats."
"Maxwell’s rats?"
"Great-rats, created by wizardry." The Baroness clenched her free fist and brought her sword across her breast. "They were not behind us, so they will be ahead of us. All draw."
Pivrax and Ma’teus continued to poke their tinder-candles into medusa lairs for evidence of Tarlos or Inez, each with an extra eye on the corridor ahead. Val’ha heard slight scuffling noises, put her head to the caveway floor and stood quickly. "I do not know how many, but there are many, up ahead," she whispered.
"The only way is forward." The Baroness pushed ahead of the torchbearers, rounding a bend in the corridor and reappearing just as the others caught up. The sound of struggle, squeaks and voracious gnawing filled their ears. "Rats are feeding. If we douse our lights, we might pass on our way…" Her last words were uttered against dead silence, then a few squeaks and scuffling footpads. "Come – weapons first, lights at the doorway!"
The entrance to the great-rats’ feeding cave was just around the corner, much more spacious than the medusa lairs, and though she had only a moment to see them in the faint reach of the candleglow from behind her, Val’ha spotted statues of varying sizes around the cavewalls. At the center of the room, by her fast count, there were at least a score of rats, their four-foot bodies as long as their pink-worm tails, their eyes saucers of black almost too big for their heads, and their dagger teeth and claws bloodied with the ravaged pulp of greywolf corpses behind them.
As the rats closed their ranks, the companions swiftly surrounded them, leaving Pivrax and Ma’teus’ torches to dimly fill the cave. One of the rats leapt; Pivrax squatted on his knees and held his javelin against the ground, allowing the rat to skewer itself. It slid down his pole, stopping at his hands; he dropped the javelin in disgust and a second rat crawled over the first one’s body. Without a weapon to defend himself, Pivrax fell back as the rat jumped at his neck, its jaws open. He pushed the rat’s head aside; its teeth found his shoulder and sunk in, causing him to howl loudly. Ma’teus pushed her flame into the rat’s face, setting its whiskers on fire. It fell back, exposing its neck for her sword. Pivrax lifted his javelin until the first rat slid off in time for another half-dozen rats to clamor in through the entrance. Ma’teus took Pivrax’s light; he held the javelin horizontally in front of them, pushing back all six rats while she stuck the tinder-candles on the heads of two he-Dwarf statues. Pivrax forced the rats back and Ma’teus joined him in the shadowy corridor.
With the reek of burning hair filling her with queasiness, Val’ha was able only to shield herself with Heinghold’s mirror from three leaping rats, pushing them back into the center of the room with their carrion. When her limbs began to tingle, she resheathed her scimitar; when her forearms started to glow light green. She dropped the mirror and cupped her hands together. A green ball formed between them and she cast it at a rat that had broken through the entryway; the rat was thrown against the wall so hard it left a bloodtrail down to the dirt.
"HAH! HAH!" The Baroness swung left, right and down upon those rats unlucky enough to meet her blade or have her sword’s blunt end crack their spines. On either side of her, Porcie and Thoryn tried to allow as much room as possible between themselves and her fury while still managing to kill a good number of rats themselves. When Tarl-Cabot finally unleashed Crundin’s flame across the room to set afire a great-rat that was about to jump Ma’teus, the battle was mostly over. A few rats with broken backs tried to scuffle away, but the knights slew them; the rat that tried to attack Ma’teus fell to Terra in a singed and smelly heap.
Baroness Val Tress concerned herself with a tally of the carcasses; others stepped over them to study the statues – Dwarves, mostly Humans, even a dog had been turned to stone. "Why do you think they are here?" asked Thoryn to shrugs.
"Thirty-four!" The Baroness’ triumphant count caused Val’ha to turn and smile but then she saw beyond her Ma’teus holding Pivrax’ bloody shoulder in her hands, his eyes locked in hers and both of them oblivious to everything else. A green-light emanated from Ma’teus, spreading rapidly to become a cocoon around her and Pivrax. The Baroness’ eyebrows raised and she too turned and was frozen by the spectacle. For almost a minute only the emerald outlines of Ma’teus and Pivrax could be seen, then gradually the light dimmed until it was no more and the two of them let go of each other. Pivrax rolled and stretched his shoulder, relief and bafflement on his grey face.
In that second, words and images flashed through Val’ha’s mind, coming together with bracing, quiet clarity. Ma’teus is my half-sister.
**
"Are you sisters?" Val’ha was not the only one to notice the resemblance of greenshade and the particular skill of healing that Ma’teus had just used to remove the bites from Pivrax’ shoulder; Porcie, Thoryn and Tarl-Cabot, who had each witnessed her do the same when she possessed the magic, called out together. For Val’ha the surge of remembrances that swept through her mind almost caused her to knock against Tarl-Cabot.
As Val’ha’s dizziness subsided, the knights took turns explaining to Ma’teus of their shared power; she told of the child’s image in the gold-light of her dreams that she now saw resembled was Ma’teus, and what their mother Chext’a said of Ma’teus’ fate a quarter century ago. When she was finished, she grabbed her sister’s shoulder, joy replacing her befuddlement. "Ma’teus!"
Ma’teus’ eyebrows left the top of her forehead and she looked with disbelief at those around her. "Are you saying, Val’ha, that I am part Elf? That I cannot believe, I look nothing like an Elf!" She pushed her dark hair behind her ears. "I have magic in my blood, that is true, but Father Gregarcantz said nothing, ever, of knowing my forebears, much less that I am Elven."
"According to Chext’a…" Val’ha’s heart stopped; she suddenly wanted to drop the matter, forget what had happened, but… "According to our mother, your father is Human." She winced and felt as though she was trying to stop a landslide.
Ma’teus appeared to consider a fast chain of memories all at once, her eyes going up, down, and up again, before they blinked and stared straight into Val’ha’s. "Did she reveal who my father is?" she asked with half her usual voice.
Val’ha could only look to Thoryn, then down at the dead grey creatures all around them. "Feukpi."
"Feuk- Feuk…"
All but Thoryn, whom Val’ha confided in one night during their journey, gasped. "Do you mean," said the Baroness, "that your mother and the father of the Woman we now hunt are her parents? That Ma’teus helps find her other half-sister?"
Val’ha nodded, lightened with relief while Ma’teus went to the stone Dwarves, stretched her arms to take the tinder-candles, then leaned against the Dwarves’ heads. Finally she stood straight, took the candles and gave one each to Thoryn and Pivrax, reached into her pack for her tinderbox, and withdrew two more candles, lighting them from the fires already aglow. "As we were battling the rats, Pivrax and I saw that the corridor just past this room branches in two directions. I think we should form two groups." She made toward the entryway; when Val’ha touched her arm, she went stiff. "I have no cause to think that what you believe you have told me is anything but the truth. I too have had the gold-light dreams, when I was a girl, but they were never more than floating shapes. I regret that I was not powerful enough to hear our mother’s calls." She gave a short smile and returned Val’ha’s touch. "I will not have my life scripted by the malcraft of my father, whoever he is, and I am not averse to our task. Now let us complete the work before us and return to Denlineil, for the many answers I seek can come only from Gregarcantz."
**
By the curve of the corridor’s branches, the companions guessed them to form a circle. With four walls now of caves, they split up: the Baroness, Porcie and Pivrax went left; Val’ha and Ma’teus, Thoryn and Tarl-Cabot went right, each group poking its candleflame into empty chamber after empty chamber. Along her portion of the arc, Val’ha was hopeful they would soon meet their friends around the other side. At one point a pack of four Maxwell’s rats came scuttling through the passage with another greywolf carcass; she urged her journeymates to jump into the nearest lair: "Let them pass to their galley."
Val’ha and Ma’teus ducked into a cave higher than most of those in the colony; its ceiling, however was not clumped dirt and roots, but smooth, almost shiny. A bolt of repulsion shot through Val’ha: the ceiling, ash-grey with black spots, oozed down in drops of all sizes, one particularly large one in front of their exit, but panic quickly supplanted her disgust and the sisters turned their backs to each other, each grasping her weapon. Ma’teus lofted her candle toward the ceiling; the space where the heat of her flame rose cleared away to form a circle. A glob swung over and doused the light with a cold swish. There was no need of another candle; the ooze emitted a grey-light that permeated the entire cave.
Two sheets of the ooze dropped down on either side of Val’ha and Ma’teus, seeped toward their feet and began to climb their legs. Val’ha held the shield over their heads and swung her scimitar as a portion of the sheet snapped apart. Ma’teus cried out; she too had slashed at the wall of ooze with her sword, but a mass of the blob had grabbed her arm, leaving it raw and bleeding.
Val’ha resheathed her scimitar and summoned her green-light; the tingling magnified into a marble of light that grew rapidly in the palm of her hand until it was the size of an apple. She dashed it into the second ooze, blowing a wide hole in the creature, which sealed itself around the entry as though it had eaten the sphere. Again the ooze began to wrap itself around Val’ha, only to stiffen, let go of her and resume its original egg shape. From deep within it a soft green light began to grow until it reached the blob’s outer layer; inside the soft light a deeper green was borne, and chased it outward through the beast’s hide. The ooze burst like a rotten fruit, splattering against the surfaces of its mother as well as Val’ha’s face, arms and clothing. Val’ha felt tearing, scalding pain and was barely aware of Ma’teus’ grip on Heinghold’s strap-handle, and her by the waist.
The moribund mother ooze shuddered and moaned the ageless drone of the Song of Terra. Just as the walls of ooze joined to form a cylinder around the collapsing sisters, the entire cave lit up, bright as ten Terr’Sols, and a scourging fire swallowed them for several seconds. When the Women made it through the fire, both now on the floor, Val’ha heard nothing for a moment and opened her eyes against the blood and pain. The ooze that had crawled onto her – the ooze all around them – was still there, but when she touched the cylinder, it crumbled to bits, brittle but fragile as moth’s wings; whatever caked her body and clothing fell away when she moved. Thoryn and Tarl-Cabot, resheathing Crundin, charged into the room, shattering the rest of the ooze to the cave floor. They lifted her and Ma’teus out of the room.
In the caveway Ma’teus began to glow bright green, especially around her wounds, and Tarl-Cabot and Thoryn set the Women down. She embraced Val’ha, bringing her into the green cocoon of light until both were fully recovered from the ooze’s poison. "Thank the magic of my Sword," said Tarl-Cabot, "but I think Crundin’s greatest task lies before us."
**
For hours they continued around the great arc, all four increasingly suspicious that the corridor might be a maze or illusion, long stretches of unbroken cave wall separated by sets of lairs and one other statue-encircled feeding room that smelled of mold and old blood. To pass the time, Val’ha and Ma’teus shared stories of their youths, Ma’teus regretting anew her inability to comprehend the maternal gold-light dreams of her childhood. "I could have met Mother. It is no wonder to me that the visions lessened as I grew older – she probably gave up on me!" The sisters laughed. "You say she only came into your dreams this past year, Val’ha?"
"Along with Ma’hadrin. In truth I cannot tell you how long the dreams occurred, only that I awoke too many mornings on Mount Carias after Father died with strong images in my mind that would vanish as quick as a blink, and always a shadow that lingered. The first dream I remember, now that I have communed with Chext’a and know her light color, included both parents. Only Mother occupies my dreams now, though; Father finished his tasks in the limbic realm and now sits by Zeus in Convah."
"What is Mother’s task, then?"
Val’ha paused, having not considered until that moment Chext’a’s full purpose in reentering her life. She chose her words with care. "At first her gold-light was always in company of – of you. It was she who told me of Oromasus’ arrival in the limbic realm, before he took me on my night-flight. It was she who told me of Xorus’ curse on our family."
"Indeed. I have, if I so wished, much to fret over – my birth caused Mother’s death, Xorus commands my birth-father Feukpi and it is clear to me now that Gregarcantz knew much but said nothing to me." A good deal of time and a dozen caves passed before Ma’teus spoke again. "Your father Ma’hadrin’s purpose…"
"Besides his regret for keeping so many things secret while he was alive, and how he slew Xorus and Xorus slew him, I think it was to help me defend myself against Xorus – the shadow in my dreams, when he tried to possess me – and to give me the cloaking amulet." Val’ha also told Ma’teus how Flegretha, Tarnac, the Faielves and Short Elves – any with magickal blood – had experienced their own bouts with Xorus.
"I too was plagued by such dreams," admitted Ma’teus. "I thought them nightmares, and have had none for many weeks."
"Good! Good, Ma’teus! It may have been a harsher test for you…I mean, with Feukpi as your father. Oh, I am sorry!" Val’ha surprised herself with the abruptness of her reaction and felt herself flush with embarrassment.
Ma’teus smiled. "Do not worry – Feukpi is but a bad fantasy to me at this point in my life, and you are right in your assessment. Please do not tell me I look like him, though!"
"Not in the least. I do not remember Mother’s face exactly, but you resemble her. You have her goodness. You do have Feukpi’s ears." The sisters shared another laugh.
Back in the caveway they reunited with the brothers. "By the goddesses of air, fire and water," swore Tarl-Cabot, "there cannot be much more to this passage which tires me with its endlessness!"
"If it is a circle that we travel, and not a labyrinth," Thoryn said, "we might consider going back."
"I do not think so, brother! The time we have left is too precious – Tarlos is too precious. Where has that witch Inez taken him?" Val’ha placed her arm on Tarl-Cabot’s shoulder just as a red-light appeared around the next bend. The four companions drew their weapons and strode toward the light, blinded for the moment. "Who are you? Show yourself!"
The red-light grew until it blocked their passage; from within it a Man appeared, caped, cowled and covered from head to foot. He stepped from the light and it vanished, though where his eyes should have been it continued to beam. A veil hid the lower part of his face; his voice was like wind when he spoke. "I am Marquis of Verdish Glen."
"Why do you seek us?" asked Tarl-Cabot. "You are the agent of Agora, are you not? What messages have you? Speak!"
The Veiled Marquis hovered; it was not apparent he even heard Tarl-Cabot, much less responded to any communication from them. "You will find why the medusa colony is gone. I am gone." The apparition began to fade. "There is no time left. When you send the child to Denlineil, all will be sent." Onofopor’s ghost departed but for the red sparkle of his eyes; it shot toward Tarl-Cabot’s hand, blanketed it in ruby glow and absorbed into the wish-ring.
Tarl-Cabot, shook his hand and jumped. "What happened? What has happened, Val’ha?"
Ma’teus answered. "The Marquis has made himself part of the wish-ring. When you wish Tarlos back to Gregarcantz there must be another consequence."
"Der’duneg. Bedamned!"
**
"I cannot believe my eyes." Thoryn and Ma’teus played their candles over the cavewall. "No crack, no opening!" The journeymates pushed, pulled and prodded jutting rocks, deep grooves, ceiling roots and floor stones that appeared queer in any way, without success. "Neither a circle nor a maze after all," said Thoryn.
"We should waste no further time in this corridor." Ma’teus headed back to the main passage.
"This cannot be." Tarl-Cabot continued to press against the walls; he poked Crundin into the ceiling only to have a mound of dirt fall on his head. "Drat!" He clenched his teeth, glaring at the dead end as though to create a way out through the force of his will when, to all of their great surprise, on the right wall an opaline line sizzled into the rock, its precise, intense flame splitting in two directions to form a doorway.
Val’ha was suddenly fearful. "Run, everyone…get back!" She pushed her companions to the ground just in time; the rock within the outline exploded into the corridor as though a Giant’s foot had kicked it from the other side. Stone fragments pounded Val’ha’s back, Terra flew and, a moment later, a perfectly formed aperture was created. Val’ha went first, Heinghold’s mirror in front of her, and all swords were drawn. Opaline light poured through the portal and the corrupted hum of the Song of Terra grew until they had to raise their voices to hear one another. "This is not good," said Thoryn, he and Ma’teus dousing their candles as they followed Val’ha into the chamber.
While Val’ha’s eyes adjusted to the cavern, vapors so acrid and strong that they bent the air filled her nose and mouth and made her cry. Through her tears she saw that portions of the cave’s furrowed limestone hung from the dome in tubes and cones. She stood on a narrow ledge that circled the cavern, at its center a pit filled with light yellow liquid, gurgling and hissing, that stunk of rot and caused the fumes. Tarl-Cabot, Thoryn and Ma’teus pushed into Val’ha, almost sending her into the pit. "Stop!" She threw back her weight to counter them, holding her arms out even as her feet sent some small stones into the fluid, where they dissolved in a whiff of smoke.
"Zeus!" said Tarl-Cabot. "Rotten eggs!" The companions sidled rightward along the small ledge, after they spotted another opening across the pit. "The gods should pour salt in my eyes and be done with it!"
Halfway across the ledge Val’ha heard other voices; Porcie poked his head through the hole, scrunched his face against the gases and called their names as the Baroness and Pivrax visible behind him. "It is good to see you!"
Two bursts of light directly across from her blinded Val’ha and silenced Porcie. When her eyes adjusted, she could see that two new figures had entered the room and the rock shelf where they stood somehow stretched out to accommodate them. With the figures lost in the glow of the opaline light-circles surrounding them, Val’ha could not make out who they were until the larger silhouette turned into Inez, her long black hair and brown dress barely hiding the whip scars across her cheeks and arms. She hovered inches above the limestone, flanked by a dark Short Elf with shifting coal eyes who carried a long thin shaft of white-gold that at first appeared to be an arrow, but was actually a small sword with a slender pearl handle and a strand of mysterious text down the blade. He swung the sword about madly while Inez rubbed her fingers together; pebbles began to break away under Val’ha and the others’ feet, forcing them to press tighter against the cavewall. Inez glared at Tarl-Cabot. "Give me the Sword. Give me Crundin, who has killed my mother."
She raised her arm and Crundin started to move toward her, but Tarl-Cabot kept his grip firm and pulled back. "To Terr’des with you, witch!" His toes hung over the pit and he tottered for several moments before throwing himself back against the wall and wrapping his other hand around his magickal Sword.
Inez reached toward Ma’teus. "Sister, sister, sister." Her voice sweetened. "Would you bring me the Sword, sister?"
Ma’teus, whose head was nodding with each pulse of the Song, stopped and scowled. "Sister, sister, sister," she echoed Inez, her tongue every bit as honeyed. "You are my sister, but you are not family."
"Never speak to me that way!" Inez’ expression bordered on madness; she lifted her open fist to form an electric snowball, casting it at Ma’teus feet. The light blasted off chunks of the ledge and forced Ma’teus and Thoryn to hop about until they had more reassured footing, though by now so much of the ledge had broken away that it separated them from Val’ha and Tarl-Cabot. The Short Elf muttered something to Inez and she laughed, then waved her hand and shrank the aperture that Porcie was stepping, forcing him to pull his leg back. The Short Elf muttered something else and his sword began to emanate a beam that he cast directly at Val’ha. She deflected it with her shield-mirror, only for the Short Elf to catch and recast it, this time at Ma’teus. Tarl-Cabot made his own incantation and shot an arc of Crundin’s fire at the Elf, penetrating his light-circle and throwing him against the far wall. "K’aleb!" shouted Inez. She turned upon Tarl-Cabot. "Give me the Sword or die by mine!"
"Your Elfservant wields Not-nibab, Sword of Frederick, God of Love, the one Sword held by the Dark God. How does it that Xorus has entrusted such power to such weakness?"
Inez sputtered and cast a branch of lightning from her fingertips at him, but Tarl-Cabot deflected it with Crundin. "You do not err in your judgement."
"What have you done with Tarnac?" Val’ha said, causing Inez to stop and lower her arms.
"What shall we do with each of your troublesome friends, Lady Val’ha, until they are all dead? K’aleb convinced Tarnac to journey to Loran to steal Frederick’s Love from me! But I was there with Not-nibab instead, not some fool eager to dispense Xorus’ only Sword to an elfling halfwit!"
"I abandoned your friend in Loran to Master Gargantua," added K’aleb.
"Let Tarnac contend with the ruler of Loran for betraying my parents on the Island of Dragons!" Inez conjured an electric snowball in each hand, missing Ma’teus and Val’ha, who felt tingling in her arms. Two limestone cones knocked loose by the lightballs splashed into the pit. Suddenly Inez herself crossed the expanse of the pit to float in front of Tarl-Cabot. "Now give me your Sword!"
Green-light filled her hand; though it was difficult to breathe or focus against the rotten vapors, she pointed her scimitar at Inez and shot the light through its triple-tipped copper blade. The light reached the end of the blade and splayed into three shafts that splatter-shot Inez’ light-circle. They sent the light-circle rolling back toward K’aleb, Inez spinning within it as she flapped her arms and legs to regain her stance.
"Good hit, Lady Val’ha!" An arrow from the Baroness’ quiver shot through the crack and careened off Inez’ circle, followed by a dagger that bounced off K’aleb, another arrow that lodged in the dome wall, and Pivrax’ javelin. Its sharp silver point hit Inez just as she was righting herself, forcing her back so that her light-circle left a mark in the limestone. She screamed in pain; her eyes rolled in, her arms flew up and her light-circle faded just enough to remind Val’ha of the limitations of Xorus’ gifts. Another arrow flew, and another, but Inez recovered enough to block one of them with a small opaline snowball.
Val’ha and her three friends were now on their own small ledges, the gurgling cesspool continued to eat away at the rock, with larger and larger chunks falling in with each passing second. K’aleb, his light-circle inflamed brighter than any Val’ha had witnessed, levitated over the pit until Not-nibab’s blade pointed at Tarl-Cabot’s heart. "Do not move to attack us any further," demanded Inez, "or we will kill him that ended my mother’s life. Give my Elfservant the Sword, false knight."
"Show me my son, witch."
"Give me the Sword and it shall be done."
"Bring him here first!"
Inez beseeched Val’ha in more words of nectar. "Sister of my sister, I beg you dissuade Tarl-Cabot of his Sword." Val’ha recognized the seductive spellcasting and resisted its allure by focusing on the memory of her mother’s gold-light. "Sister of my sister," Inez continued even more sweetly, "I need the favor of Xorus once again – I will even petition that he free you from your own fate." This was too much for Val’ha: Twice Xorus’ doppelganger-wraiths had saved her life, and though she had no indication that her family’s curse was anything but long-gone, the only reason the wraiths rescued her was for Xorus’ more vile purpose and here, at this moment, she could learn what that was. Her face must have betrayed her thoughts; Inez brightened and flew across the acid pit until her light-circle was only feet away from Val’ha’s scimitar. "Curious? Welcome to my world, Lady Val’ha."
"The curse was only that my mother should die in first childbirth." Val’ha was aware that by engaging Inez her willpower was beginning to fade. But I must know!
Inez gave a rollicking laugh and pointed at Ma’teus. "Yes! Yes, part of the curse was that your mother should die in first childbirth! That is true, though you have found out your mother was already fat with you when the wraiths came – our sister should thank you for saving her from Master Xorus!" She chortled. "But to be kind, for you do not seem to grasp the wholeness of the spell – or Chext’a was too foolish to tell you – I will do so before the wraiths heap it upon you!" Her gaze traveled to Val’ha’s neck. "You have acquired the amulet that shielded your parents! Father said Mother took it from you on the Island of Dragons!" Her eyes narrowed. "No matter, the amulet weakens and betrays you as it once did Chext’a. Your father must find a stronger cloaking-spell!"
Another arrow shot through the crack, bounced off Inez and dissolved in the pit; she swatted the air and the crack sealed. The sternness that hardened her face went away for a moment; with her other hand she waved Not-nibab down, surprising even K’aleb. She searched Val’ha’s eyes. "No. No, you must really not be aware. While it is true that your mother was to die in first childbirth, she never completed the sentence." Val’ha’s entire body grew cold, and she could feel the tears that streamed down her neck. "Xorus desired that she give birth to a daughter, and that daughter to a daughter, and every first daughter would die – will die – in first childbirth. It is your fate, Val’ha, as much in a way as my own."
Val’ha’s senses dimmed away and she could only focus on Inez’ words that rattled in her. Her heart leapt and sank at the same time, pulling her inside out. For a second she railed against Chext’a for not telling her, because in her agony she knew that Inez spoke the truth. "Val’ha!" Tarl-Cabot cried, dragging her outside herself. "Enough talk!" He plunged Crundin through K’aleb’s heart in the same second a blinding flash of opaline light popped Val’ha’s ears: Not-nibab was gone, and K’aleb looked down in shock at his open hands, at the Sword plunged through his light-circle and chest, Tarl-Cabot. The light-circle faded and Tarl-Cabot had to hold himself against the limestone dome to avoid falling into the pit as the weight of K’aleb slid off Crundin, dragging it downward until the elfling slipped into the acid, his body and belongings dissolving in a second.
Inez floated backward, darkness returned to her countenance, and resumed her perch. A large chunk of stone fell away under Val’ha’s feet and she almost lost her footing. "Die!" Inez’ entire light-circle became a flaming opaline sphere that consumed her, its malcraft drowning out every other noise. The flares of the sphere stretched into a singular point a few feet in front of it, forming a sideways raindrop that shot a beam from its tip at the stone under Tarl-Cabot and Thoryn. It completely gave way and the Men, grasped each other’s shoulders as they lost their footing and tumbled from the ledge. Red-light flew out of Tarl-Cabot’s wish-ring and blanketed the brothers within it, suspending them a yard above the acid.
Inez reappeared within her light-circle, now so weak in color that it was almost invisible around her. She held her throat and looked down into the pit; frowning at the hovering knights whose bodies began to slump through the middle, to Val’ha’s horror, of the red-light. "Cannot – cannot." The Veiled Marquis’ voice came weakly just before his light heaved Tarl-Cabot and Thoryn toward Val’ha’s crumbling ledge. They held on by their fingers, Tarl-Cabot slightly to Val’ha’s right, where he was able to lift himself and Crundin up even s Thoryn’s sword plummeted into the sulfurous pit. Val’ha resheathed her scimitar and threw Heinghold’s mirror to Ma’teus, who was still on comparably solid footing and caught it. Though their grip was frustrated with sweat, Val’ha and Thoryn held onto each other even as more of the ledge crumbled away. Every part of her searing with the burn of acid, she used the little strength she had left to begin to pull him up, gladdened when Tarl-Cabot stretched as far as he could to help.
Thoryn now had one hand each in Tarl-Cabot and Val’ha’s own, but Inez was beginning to dance in the manic jig of her father, the corrupted Song and her own light-circle intensified. Her voice became a deep monotone: "Goddess Snow, wicked she-demon of disease, through the Song I bring you forth! Sand from the desert, wind of the mountain, water of the sea, poison from the marsh – Spirit from Terr’des, conjure it! Spirit in Terra, conjure it!" Instantly the blood and pain of every wound Val’ha had ever had – a gash from childhood play, the suction tears of Aentfroghe’s Je-Roptile, the burn of the ooze – reappeared, sending through her such intense pain that she almost lost Thoryn’s grasp. Ma’teus cried out; Tarl-Cabot too had been sent Snow’s plague, and his arms bled with cuts and reopened scars onto his brother’s face. Thoryn slipped, Tarl-Cabot lost his balance and suddenly the weight of Thoryn’s life was under Val’ha alone.
She fought against her pain and the scream that wanted to escape her even as her and Thoryn’s hands, finger by finger, were weakening their clutch. Inez was spinning, but her light-circle was gone. "Brother," said Tarl-Cabot, moving further away from Val’ha and Thoryn as the ledge gave way beneath him, "I will see our vengeance." He cast Crundin straight through Inez’ middle with such strength that it pinned her against the far wall.
Another stone fell into the pit, leaving one of Val’ha’s feet overhanging. Just as the precipice under her other foot gave way, "I love you, Val’ha, and ever shall." Sir Thoryn slid away, down into the acid, vaporized in an instant.
Inez writhed upon the Sword that pilloried her and tried to pull it out. "You have my Sword, witch, and upon it you are smote," Tarl-Cabot said. She screeched and exploded in a flash of blue-white light and the limestone, the acid, Val’ha’s pain and their wounds, the ledges, the drone and Inez, were gone, and she, Ma’teus and Tarl-Cabot standing in a regular cave. The Baroness, Pivrax and Porcie stumbled in.
"Thoryn?" As Val’ha adjusted to the abrupt lack of pain, noise and everything else, Tarl-Cabot’s plaintive call for his brother, and Thoryn’s absence, broke her heart. Tarl-Cabot approached the other entryway, a hinged wooden door into which Crundin stuck, and pulled it out. As Porcie and the Baroness poked their swords into the ground and knelt in silent prayer and Pivrax and Ma’teus searched the room, Val’ha drew Tarl-Cabot to her and embraced him, partly to keep from falling herself. She pushed his black hair back over his shoulder and her cheek touched his rough one, their tears mingling. Tarl-Cabot whispered, "It was all an illusion
Val’ha clasped his arms. "Thoryn will be long heralded. Now let us save your son."
**
They entered a small candlelit room with cobbled walls and a stone highback chair in which sat a mat-haired grey crone wearing a dirty, pale-green dress that ran past her feet. She was so wretched and wrinkled Val’ha wondered if she was a corpse or merely two centuries old. The crone’s breathing told the companions she was asleep, but as they neared her she sniffed, swallowed and awoke, her eyes stark blue-green. She straightened herself somewhat and put her hands on the arms of the stone chair. "Come forward, Elf." Her brittle voice flitted between high and low. Gripping her mirror-shield tighter, Val’ha advanced slowly toward the crone. "Aye, I the only one left. The rest? Gone!" She waved her brown-spotted hands about.
"I was told there are statues, stone creatures."
"Wise Elf. Statues? Stone? Our colony? Did! Until many years ago. I the only one? Left! Woman come through Fields – attacked three of number. She killed them? Aye! Two, with a touch! Queen? Tropruscht her name. Queen! Demanded the one, three died. Wise one like you. Queen gone, new Queen. Shame?
"Ruled eleven of your Terran years she, grew lonely sometimes for own kind. Left sometimes…Aye! Once for good, and all others without Queen. Left, and I stay waiting! Waiting! For nothing!"
Val’ha tried to unravel the crone’s riddles. "What became of the colony? What became of Claraudice?"
The crone snorted. "Humph! Colony turned to stone, they were! Statues join the others – all stones, no more…" She appeared to be falling asleep again. "So tired am I, aye…" She slumped forward, her shiny grey hair falling past her knees; suddenly she jumped back, hitting her head against the stone but seeming none the worse for it. "Claraudice!"
"Yes." Val’ha felt jumpy with impatience. "What became of her?"
"So weary." The crone’s eyes clouded with black. "Claraudice am I. Must change…" Her hair and dress started to quiver.
"Hide your gaze! Cover your eyes!" Baroness Val Tress ordered. Val’ha retreated as the crone’s dress grew scales and shaped itself into a giant snake’s tail, her hair began to hiss, her tongue flecked out in a black-scaled fork, and her skin turned mottled as rotting leaves.
Val’ha gazed into Heinghold’s mirror; by now Claraudice had transformed completely into a medusa, asps hissing about her head and her body slithering from the stone chair toward Tarl-Cabot and Porcie. Val’ha remembered the strange last words of Tropruscht and repeated them: "Iss wissle bith demissith ith ess wissle deffth!"
Claraudice froze; in the copper reflection Val’ha could see that she was now making toward her: "Cossem osst fisth bithind sith shilth." The medusa’s words were complete gibberish to Val’ha, but they so compelled her that she thought, If just for a moment, I must see her…
"BOSH!" The Baroness’ sword hissed through the air into the mat of snakes atop the medusa’s head and, with the slicing thud that told Val’ha Claraudice’s skull had been cleaved, the image in the mirror swayed slowly left, slowly right and by the time the snake unraveled to the floor, the head that landed on Val’ha’s foot-coverings was Claraudice, splattered by blood, brain and bone, in Human form. The journeymates uncovered their eyes as the Baroness kicked and spat upon the crone’s corpse. "Ha!"
The stone chair shifted, opening to reveal daylight. Candles doused and weapons drawn, the companions stepped into a circular pit so large that it was closer to a valley, its upper perimeter lined with cornstalks. Terr’Sol was on its descent and after Val’ha’s eyes adjusted she could see scores of medusa statues and beyond them, sandstone Humans, Dwarves, lizards, centaurs, wer’betes, cats and horses, Dragons and wyvern, tulips and jewerbugs, crurrers, even water-leapers, stretched a half-mile. "By my father’s name," said Porcie, "there must be ten thousand statues here!"
"Twenty thousand even," said the Baroness.
The journeymates separated out into field of statues calling, "Tarlos! Tarlos!"
Val’ha spotted a small boy’s foot behind a stone bull. She motioned Tarl-Cabot and together they found him – quivering, frightened and dirty, Tarlos bit his lip, his skin and bugged-out eyes as dark as Tarl-Cabot’s, his hair tinged by Tropruscht’s redness. "Are you all right, Tarlos?" Tarl-Cabot put away Crundin, kneeled close to the cringing boy and took his hands. "Are you Tarlos?"
"I am, sir," Tarlos said. Ma’teus approached him and his eyes brightened. "Sister!" He jumped up and wrapped himself around her waist. "The wicked lady caught me, Ma’teus, she took me and tied me up and said I was going to be here forever unless…unless…" Tarlos buried his face in her shirt; she bent toward him and whispered in his ear, then directed him toward Tarl-Cabot, who stretched his arms to take Tarlos’ hands. The wish-ring glowed red. "Am I going home?"
"Yes. Yes, you are, Tarlos. Tell Princess Igri, your mother, that my brother has gone to Convah." Onofopor’s red-light encased their bodies. "I wish for Tarlos – begone from the Fields of Claraudice and find your way to the court of Princess Igri." The band glowed red for a bright second and popped out of existence and Tarlos was gone.
"Princess Igri?" The Baroness was incensed. "Igri, Tarl-Cabot?" She said no more, for like a wildfire suddenly every statue in the valley burst into red-light until the air burned with the bright magic of the Veiled Marquis. By the pairs, dozens and scores the petrified creatures vanished, leaving the companions alone in the valley. "I hope, lord knight, that you have not sent the stones to her as well!" Red-light, however, splashed over both the Baroness and Tarl-Cabot and they faded before he could answer. Pivrax and Porcie disappeared, then Ma’teus, and when the red-light released Val’ha she found herself and her companions – even Sir Quigley and all of their mounts – at the edge of the pines on the west bank of Denlineil Stream.
