A Guardian of Shadows (Revenant Wyrd Book 4) (26 page)

She stood in a mountain pass, looking down at the city winking with lights so far below her that she could almost imagine they were lightning bugs. The Guardian's Palace was still visible, but small, and if she considered how far up she must be for that building to appear small, Cianna could feel dizziness swarming over her mind.

She made camp, though there was no wood to make a fire with, and pulled the blankets tight over her body to conserve heat.

The stars seemed so close here. Looking up at the inky veil, she let her mind wander, thinking of what was happening in the rest of the realms. She had been gone from home for so long now, and so much was going on that she didn't even know about. If it wasn't for the spirits, she would have no information at all, and even that information was fleeting, offered only when they didn't have anything else to complain about, like how they died or how they couldn't cross over.

“You could use them to gather information for you,” Cianna heard to her right, and she nearly jumped out of bed. Ava was sitting there, cross-legged, so close to Cianna that her knees nearly touched her.

“How?” Cianna asked.

“Just command them to gather information for you. It won't be instant, but they will gather the information you seek.”

“Show me,” Cianna said. “Like you did with the ghost light.”

Ava nodded and vanished, and Cianna felt the little girl slip through her mind like a miasma of death.

She felt Ava take hold of her necromancy, and with guiding hands she called to the less mournful dead. They responded like fog on her mind, and Ava gave a command of feelings. At once Cianna felt the spirits take her desires to know what was happening in the world, and they whisked away.

“Now sleep,” Ava told her, separating from her body. “Tomorrow will be a long day for you.”

Mag pushed the door open to Sara's office. She was the only one that could feel it, she was sure. There had been a disturbing flutter in the wyrd through the keep, and it was coming from the office of the Realm Guardian.

Sara had diminished a lot over the last month, now hardly more than a skeleton lost in the embrace of the large chair behind her desk. She sat slumped, her hands loosely holding the glowing white Orb of Aldaras.

Mag had heard of this orb. It was the same orb that Sara used to connect herself and other realm officials. It was even thought that the orb allowed the Realm Guardian access to the realm itself.

Mag eased in and shut the door behind her quietly. She didn't want to disturb the Realm Guardian, but Mag had to investigate the source of the dark wyrd she felt pulsing through the keep.

She moved closer, watching to see if there was any movement from Sara. Besides the deep, ragged breaths the Guardian was taking, there was none. But as she came nearer, there was an image in the orb that made Mag stop still.

It was the Beast. Large, its body taking up nearly the entire surface of the orb. Its seven heads perched at the end of seven serpentine necks. Fourteen faces leered from the surface of the orb, and if she looked deeply enough, Mag almost thought she could see the twelve sets of wings on the back of its bloated body.

Mag gasped and stepped back. No sooner had the noise left her lips than ten of the fourteen faces turned in her direction, and the image started to vanish. Sara let out a moaning sigh and slumped forward, her hand knocking the orb off its perch. The Orb of Aldaras rolled forward, and just as it was about to land on the stone floor, Mag loosed enough wyrd to cushion its fall. She didn't want to touch the orb, not after the image she had seen within, so she eased it back on its perch with the help of her wyrd, and in the same fashion slid it away from the Realm Guardian.

Making her way to Sara, she tossed a white riding cloak over the orb, and a tattered piece of parchment fluttered from inside the folds to land on the floor at the base of the desk. As she shuffled by, the parchment was pushed under the desk and nearly out of sight. She paid it no mind.

“Sara,” she whispered, stirring the Realm Guardian out of her near-catatonic state. “What are you doing?”

“Annbell,” she said weekly.

“Annbell is gone, checking on reports sent to her by telfetch of village raids,” Mag told her. “She asked me to watch over things while she was gone.”

Sara nodded. “Checking.” Sara motioned to the orb.

“You should be resting,” Mag told her, helping Sara to stand. Mag was a small woman, so it took all of her effort, and some of her wyrd, to help the Realm Guardian stand.

“Nightmares,” Sara said, shuffling along beside Mag. “Tea,” she said as an afterthought. She tried to look behind her, but could barely manage the movement.

“I will get you more, I will ask Van to make it. Right now, you need rest.” Mag looked back at the orb. No wonder Sara was having nightmares, if what was ailing her was coming from the orb. She had been told that Sara was making the realm ill because she was ill. If the orb was making Sara ill, then would getting rid of the orb stop the illness? It only made sense that something could reach through the orb to Sara if Sara was able to reach through the orb to other things.

She guided Sara through her room and to the bed. Mag helped the Guardian into the blankets, tucked her in, and wasn't surprised to see that Sara almost instantly fell asleep.

What were they going to do? They had two Guardians, that was true, but Annbell wasn't a sorcerer, and Mag didn't think there was ever a Realm Guardian that wasn't a sorcerer. Would Annbell be able to hold the position by herself?

And could Sara even die from this? She was a sorceress, and that was supposed to mean there was only one way she could die. But looking at her pallid skin, Mag wasn't so sure there wasn't another way.

She pushed the short locks of her black hair away from her forehead, wyrded the lights out, and silently closed the door behind herself, though she wasn't sure Sara would even have woken if she slammed the door. She didn't think Sara would wake up any time soon, but she made her way to the outer office to ask Sara’s assistant, Van, if he could make the tea. The young man looked worried, bobbed his head, and disappeared down a back stairway behind his desk.

Mag returned to the office and stood there for a while, looking around. She could feel the source of the chaotic wyrd still within the office, but it was lessening now. There was only one place she thought the power could be coming from.

She crossed to the orb, her heavy red robes whisking across the stone floor, and took the riding cloak from the relic. Mag peered inside, but saw nothing. She traced a finger over the surface, and it felt cold, lifeless.

She rubbed her fingers together, feeling like a film covered them. Mag instantly didn't like the orb. Taking it in her hands with the use of the riding cloak, she crossed to the open box, and dumped the Orb of Aldaras into the velvety interior.

She could barely believe what she had seen. In fact, as she closed the lid on the box, she wondered if she had even really seen it. She shook her head and went back to the desk, the hem of her rob sweeping the parchment further under it. The movement of yellow paper on gray stone drew her attention down.

Mag kneeled and picked the parchment up between thin fingers. She set it on the desk, and as she was turning away she saw there was writing inside.

She looked around, as if someone was going to catch her doing something she shouldn't, before flattening the paper on the desk and seeing an unfamiliar handwriting within.

Age and sloppy writing made it hard to read, but she sat down in Sara's chair, and opened the drawers one at a time until she found some parchment and a quill. Fervently, she started transcribing what was inside.

At some point Van brought the tea in without her really noticing him, and took it in to Sara before leaving once more. He didn't bother to ask what she was doing. By the time she was done translating what was written on the old parchment, a light snow had started to fall, like sugar across the window panes behind her.

Mag leaned back and read over what she had written.

“Twelve, Andray Flestra; twenty-one, Sranda Inia; eleven, Alestra Vellen; fourteen, Erenes Haten; seventeen, Lleon Feliays.” She pressed a hand to her stomach when it jumped painfully. She moaned a little, waiting for the pain to subside. Eventually it did and she looked at the script again.

“It has to be a code,” she said to herself. “Alright, the numbers and the words correlate somehow?” she asked the paper as if it would answer. She pulled out more parchment and started scribbling. “First number is twelve, maybe it marks the letters of the names they go with? Alright, A is the first letter, and F the second?” She started writing the letters down according to that theorem, but that didn't make any sense, because the second age was twenty-one and she already had a letter in the second space of the first word. She scratched out her work and started over.

Again and again she tried different patterns, all the while the pain in her stomach growing, and now an ache in her head accompanied it. Had she ate something that was bad?

She thought for a moment on that to clear her mind, and felt the slightest pulse of energy in the office, but since it was coming from Sara's room, it was probably just the Realm Guardian giving off a bit of wyrd in her sleep.

She bent back to the paper, and then saw what she had missed.

“Yes, if I use the names in the order they were given, and take the names, then I would say the first name would come first. Ok, twelve: one comes first, so A is the first letter of the first word. Two is the second number of twelve, and the second letter of the last name is L, so the first letter of the second word would be L,” and so she went to work, talking to herself as she worked.

Once finished, and proud of her work, she looked down and instantly stood, knocking the chair over.

“No, that can't be right,” she whispered, looking down at the words written before her, taken from the code of the ages and names.

A.R.A.E.L. L.I.V.E.S.

It made sense, though: the image of the Beast in the orb, the recent attacks.

“The Well of Wyrding — that was one of his tricks last time. All the chaotic wyrd in recent months,” Mag started talking to herself, pacing back and forth. “And I wouldn't be surprised if an alarist was the one that put a bug in the ear of the chaos dwarves.”

A wave of energy from Sara's room nearly took Mag to her knees. She doubled over, vomiting bile on the floor as the malignant power sang through her blood. She cried out, felt her muscles spasm and then release.

She sunk to the floor, gasping in the relaxation that only comes after crippling pain. Mag breathed for a few minutes, looking at the door to Sara's room.

“What's going on?” she wondered. Was Arael inside her Guardian? How would that even be possible?

The power she felt before was still oozing from the room, and Mag made her way tentatively to the door to Sara's room. She pushed open the door, and the chaotic energy was almost tangible in the air.

The power was coming from in here, somewhere.

Mag closed the door behind her and shut her eyes, leaning against the embrace of the doorframe. She felt with her wyrd, searching every surface with the other sight until she saw a point of blackness in the room, like a cancerous energy drinking in all light. She opened her eyes, staring right at the area the chaotic power was coming from.

“The tea?” she wondered out loud.

She crossed to the bedside stand, and as she reached for the tea, the malignancy grew.

Mag didn't waste any time. She went to the window, threw it open, and tossed the tea and cup right out the window, barely missing a passerby below, who squawked and glared up at her.

She didn't apologize, because just then she heard the door whisper open behind her, and the thudding of feet coming toward her.

Mag spun, lashing out with a tendril of green wyrd, rendering the person immobile. She wasn't surprised to see Van.

“You were supposed to be
helping
her,” Mag said, sending a crippling wave of intent down her wyrd. She watched it thunder into him, and he cried out. Vanparaness's knees went weak beneath him, but the wyrd wouldn't let him crumple to the ground.

“Kill me then,” he said.

“That isn't my job,” she said. “I can't deny that I would love nothing more than to spill your blood across the snow, but then you would win. I will let Annbell decide what to do with you.”