Blood of the Earth (49 page)

“I cannot be sure, but I would have you consider the possibilities,” Siduri said. “Using power always has consequences, often unforeseen. It may cure her. It may kill her. It may confer upon her a power so great that she would transcend her human existence. But then, she is in the grip of one of the Taker’s minions, and so that power would pass to him.”

“Wait … who’s the Taker?”

“He is the enemy of the light, the Taker of life, the bringer of darkness,” Siduri said. “He is the timeless and formless master of the netherworld.”

Alexander felt a chill race up his spine. He stood stock-still, processing what he’d just learned. Before he could respond, Siduri continued.

“The Taker is always looking for a way into the world of time and substance. In the netherworld he cannot have substance, yet he craves it. Only in this world can he manifest in physical form, yet he is denied access by the very nature of the world of time and substance itself. The blood of the earth has the power to alter that essential nature, to unmake the rules of reality. This remedy you seek could deliver into the Taker’s hands the power to come forth and consume the world.”

Alexander swallowed hard as the magnitude of Siduri’s words sank in.

“I have to try,” he said. “I can’t just let Phane take her from me.” His voice broke as the weight of his emotional distress threatened to overwhelm him. “She’s my wife. I love her more than anything. I have to save her.”

“Find another way,” Siduri said.

“The other way is beyond me!” Alexander said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to save her.”

“That will be your folly, Alexander. I speak from experience. Heed my words.”

“No,” Alexander said, his resolve hardening. He’d come this far. The last ingredient he needed was within reach. “I have to do this. I’ll look for another way, but right now, I need this option if all else fails.”

Siduri took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “Perhaps you will learn a valuable lesson from my mistake.”

Alexander nodded, deflated and emotionally exhausted.

“I was born in a small village on what you call the Reishi Isle. My grandfather was the shaman. He took me as his apprentice because I demonstrated a keen insight at a very young age. Much like you, Alexander, I could see colors. Others have no concept of the power such vision confers. The insight is priceless.

“I studied diligently and learned quickly. When I was ready, I undertook my vision quest. From full moon to full moon I fasted, drinking only the water of a sacred and secluded mountain lake revered by our people as a place of magic. I faced pain and despair and fear like nothing I could have imagined, yet I survived. When I returned, my grandfather was disappointed that I couldn’t learn the simple spells he wished to teach me, yet my insight increased. I could see farther and deeper than any other. Eventually, when my grandfather passed from this world, I became the shaman.

“I served my village for nearly three hundred years. Over those years my abilities developed. I gained the ability to see at a great distance, to become one with source, to see all around me even with my eyes closed, even the ability to walk with the spirits.

“Eventually, the people became fearful of me because I did not age as others do. It’s expected that a shaman will live much longer than others, but I was different. I remained young, even though centuries passed.

“Seeing the fear in their colors was painful for me. I had served my people faithfully for my whole life but I realized that I could remain with them no longer, so I left my village and walked the world, exploring the Seven Isles for over a century. Still I did not age.

“Then I met a woman. She was beautiful and kind. I fell in love with her and discovered a joy like nothing I’d known before. For several short years we enjoyed happiness together, living a simple life in a little house. We had three sons and they were the center of our world. They were bright and full of life, exuberant and curious about everything.”

Siduri stopped and took a deep breath, centering himself before he continued.

“One bright summer day, my sons went fishing in a little boat on the river. I found them washed up on the bank. All three had drowned. I can’t express with words the depth of the pain I felt. The loss was total and all-consuming. The pain of the vision quest was a trivial thing compared to the limitless agony of such loss.

“As devastating as it was for me, it was doubly difficult for my wife. She was hysterical, simply unable to face a world without her children. Fearing she would harm herself, I gave her an herbal mixture to make her sleep.”

He paused and fixed Alexander with a penetrating stare before continuing.

“Then I set out to bring my children back from the dead.”

Alexander swallowed hard.

“I had not used my power for anything of consequence since meeting my wife. But now I slipped free of my mortal bonds and walked in the silvery world of the spirits. I sought out my sons and found them before they passed into the light. I beseeched their ghosts to wait, to remain in the spirit world. I told them that I could bring them back, that I would find a way.

“From there I found my way into the realm of light and begged the Lords of Light to help me, to grant a reprieve to my sons. I implored them to give my children life again. With great compassion and boundless sympathy, they refused to alter the natural order of the world to spare my wife and me the heartache we were suffering. I wept.”

Siduri stopped again, staring off into the distance, a haunted look in his eyes.

“What I did next was driven by madness, desperation, and above all, hubris. Having failed to gain the aid I sought from the realm of light, I turned to the darkness. I would undo my children’s deaths, no matter the cost.” He fixed Alexander with a hard look.

He felt a tingle of dread wash over his entire body. He stood still, hanging on Siduri’s every word.

“I traveled into the cold and lifeless void of the netherworld and was met by the broken souls that reside there. They assailed me, tearing at my living light with almost desperate viciousness, but I held my place and called out for the Taker. And he answered my summons.

“In abject desperation, I offered to pay any price if he would bring my children back to life.

“He named his price. It was what I had expected and I agreed willingly: When I die, he will claim my soul. In that moment, I believed it to be a triumph. I thought I had cheated death, overcome the natural order of the world to save my family. The price would be paid much later, and I was willing to bear it if it would bring my children back.”

Siduri fell silent, wrestling with an ancient emotional burden that still haunted him.

“The Taker fulfilled his part of the bargain, in a manner of speaking. My children returned from the dead, but they were changed, tainted by the Taker’s darkness. Would you like to know their names, Alexander?” Siduri looked up, his gaze boring into Alexander.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry. Cold dread rippled over his skin.

“My eldest son is named Shivini … my middle son is named Rankosi … and my youngest son is named Jinzeri.”

Chapter 36

Lacy shivered with fear as the dragon’s shadow passed over her hiding place beneath a large pine tree. Drogan was beside her, looking through the boughs toward the sky. They’d been on the run for days and Lacy was cold, tired, and hungry.

“There’s the second one,” he whispered as another shadow flickered overhead.

The dragons were new. She’d been hunted by soldiers since her home was overrun. She’d been hunted by something out of a nightmare since she’d recovered the obscure little black box from her family crypt. The dragons had only been hunting her since the previous day.

“I still don’t understand why dragons are hunting me,” she said, having difficulty reconciling her understanding of reality with the words coming out of her mouth.

“Zuhl has collared a number of dragons to serve him,” Drogan said. “We’ll have to move at night from now on.”

Lacy nodded. Drogan had been her protector for only a couple of weeks but he had already saved her life at least three times. She knew with chilling certainty that she wouldn’t have made it through the night they met if he hadn’t been there to help her.

She didn’t quite trust him, though. There was something odd about him, something she couldn’t put her finger on. She reminded herself yet again to be vigilant.

She had a duty to fulfill. Her father had trusted her in his moment of greatest need and she meant to live up to that trust no matter what. Drogan was necessary. She couldn’t survive alone. Even without the soldiers, demons, and dragons hunting her, she wasn’t prepared to live on the road. She was learning quickly, though.

They had encountered a group of three thugs in the first days after Drogan had come to her aid. Lacy had heard stories about such men, but she wasn’t prepared for the reality of meeting them on a deserted road. She knew without a doubt how her life would end if they’d had their way. Drogan had killed them with a kind of detached efficiency that both fascinated and frightened her.

The three ruffians were armed with rudimentary weapons: a woodsman’s axe, a stout club of Iron Oak, and a knife. They spread out to surround them. Drogan simply waited, watching them casually, as if they posed no real threat. The man with the axe brought it over his head in an attempt to split Drogan’s skull. He simply stepped aside at just the right moment. As the thug lunged forward, pulled by the momentum of his swing, Drogan grabbed him by the chin with one large hand and the back of the head with the other, a quick snapping twist and the man crumpled to the ground.

The other two were shocked by how quickly their companion had died. They hesitated. But Drogan didn’t. He closed quickly on the man with the knife, grabbed his hand, crushing his fingers around the hilt, driving the blade up into his throat. The third thug turned and ran. Drogan casually picked up the fallen man’s axe, eyed the fleeing man for a moment, then brought the axe over his head and hurled it, end over end, into the man’s back. He died slowly, blood sputtering and frothing from his mouth. As he twitched in pain, Drogan searched him for anything of use and then left him lying in the road without the mercy of a quick death.

Lacy could still see the panic in his dying eyes. She hated that she was grateful for their deaths, but she knew what they would have done to her if they’d caught her alone. For now she needed Drogan and they both knew it.

***

She woke with a start. Drogan had a hand over her mouth but released it when she nodded. It was nearly dark, the sun having only just set. They’d spent the day under the pine tree waiting for the safety of night. Drogan said the dragons could see well in daylight but were just as limited as people at night. She hoped he was right.

He motioned in the gloom. She caught her breath when she heard a twig snap. The enemy was close. Carefully, quietly, she looked through the tree branches and counted six big brutish men spread out and moving slowly. They were searching for her.

“Their trail came this way, I’m sure of it,” one of them said.

Another of the men looked up at the rapidly darkening sky and shook his head. “It’s too dark to track them now. We’ll make camp in this clearing and pick up their scent at first light.”

Lacy schooled her breathing as she watched the men begin to make camp not thirty feet from her hiding place. Darkness fell as they built a fire. She held perfectly still, breathing slowly and evenly. The men cooked a meal of horse meat and washed it down with a jug of wine. After a painstaking couple of hours spent holding still while listening to the men joke and laugh about their very graphic plans for her when they caught her, she watched them finally lie down to sleep.

One man stayed awake, sitting by the fire, poking at the embers with a stick. When the rest were snoring, Drogan started to move. In the flickering firelight filtering through the branches, he took off his hat and long coat, then slipped a knife free of its sheath.

With deliberate slowness, he crept out from under the pine boughs and worked his way through the darkness. Lacy watched and waited. She knew what was about to happen—she knew it would be terrible and bloody, and she hated herself for wishing these men dead, but she also knew what would happen to her if they caught her.

Drogan was invisible in the dark, silent as a tomb. Lacy almost started to think he had simply crept out of the camp and left her to fend for herself when she caught a glimpse of his shadowy form behind the soldier sitting by the fire. Lacy’s heart beat so hard she could feel it in her temples. When she caught herself holding her breath, she let it out slowly and silently.

Drogan inched closer to the soldier. Finally reaching striking distance, he lunged forward, driving the knife into the man’s lower back just to the right of the spine, at the same time clapping his left hand over the man’s mouth. The surprised soldier stiffened but didn’t utter a sound as Drogan brought the blade up and cut his throat, spilling bright red blood down his tunic.

He carefully laid the man over, then froze still as a stone. No one stirred. He selected his next target, the nearest man. He didn’t rush. Picking each step and testing his footing before committing weight to it, he glided in slow motion through the flickering light.