Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (37 page)

Worse, he feared he knew why she’d left. He’d
felt the rash of ungodly heat that should not have been between
them. He’d heard the keening cry, so brief, so damning—and so must
have Llynya.

Madron had made him no promises when he’d
gone to see her, only told him the brew in the phial would work to
cool the dragonfire when it came upon him—work to a point, and she
knew not where the limit lay. As to the potion’s price, she’d said
naught, only advised him to win one battle at a time. An adverse
portent, and a measure of his desperation that he’d taken it
anyway.

Aye, Merioneth was filling up with adverse
portents of late: Sha-shakrieg, skraelings, the monk captured in
Riverwood. He’d heard the man’s head was shaved much in the manner
of Balor’s dead evil-mongering leech, and that like the leech, he
wore the robes of a Culdee from Ynys Enlli. The monk was traveling
with a mare laden with books, and Madron had voiced a strong
interest in the tomes.

A light gust of wind swirled out of the
opening and blew cold across his cheek. He had not much time for
reading anymore, but he knew exactly where he needed to pick up his
search—in the cavern of the damson shaft where Rhuddlan should be
even now at the war gate. The flat slab of stone he’d spied high on
the glittering wall was a guidepost of some sort; he was sure of
it. ’Twas too incongruous within a sheet of crystal to be any work
of nature. The long shadow to its right could be naught but a
sideslip, an opening so narrow a man had to enter it sideways.

The caverns were full of writings and
direction marks, but by the sheer difficulty of its placement,
Mychael guessed that what he’d seen in the damson shaft led to
something significant, or why else bother to fit smooth stone into
a crystal wall?

Aye, there were plenty of reasons for him to
go into the dark: a chance at the wormhole now that he knew how to
open Rhuddlan’s seals, the surety of a battle finally to be fought,
and mayhaps a mark of sanctuary beyond “
Ammon
” to be found
in the damson shaft. Aye, there were plenty of reasons to go and
only one reason not to—Llynya.

He swore softly, and his hand instinctively
went to the pouch of wildflowers hanging from his belt. The cloth
was supple, sensual against his skin. His light touch released the
fragrance of flowers, and the scent, so sweet with memories, twined
around him.

The wind gusted again, a cool draft swirling
through the flowery essence and blowing up the tunnel. Mychael
followed it with his gaze to where Tabor and the pack train had
disappeared. He could still hear the clip-clop of hooves and the
gentle jingling of bells on harnesses. By nightfall, the ponies
would he grazing with Rhuddlan’s mares in the meadows of
Merioneth’s baileys. Tabor would be drinking honeymead at the
hearthfire, and despite the preparations for war, stories would be
told, songs sung. The stars would be shining, the moon waning—and
Llynya would be there, part of it all.

She was what held him back. Despite that
she’d left him, more than anything he wanted to be with her, to
hold her, to once again feel the softness of her lips beneath
his.

Half-mad fool.

He shrugged into his pack, adjusting its
weight across his back, then unsheathed his crystal blade. Holding
it high, he slipped into the narrow opening next to the flow-stone.
Llynya or nay, he knew where he must go—across the Magia Wall and
into the dark. If he was ever to be free of the dragons, or break
them to his will, he first had to find them.

~ ~ ~

Home, was all Nia could think. She wanted to
go home, and she wasn’t particular about which home she went to:
Deri with the great oak of Wroneu, Carn Merioneth with Riverwood,
or Kerach in the north. Any forest would do. Verily, any tree.

Aye. That’s what she needed—a tree.

“Hold!” Varga’s muffled command came back to
her. She stopped crawling, swearing bitterly under her breath while
another bit of hope died in her breast.

She and Varga had waited on the Rift but an
hour before a message had arrived from the Lady Queen of
Deseillign, setting them on this doomed path. The Grim Crawl was a
thousand times worse than the Kai Crack, a thousand times longer, a
thousand times less forgiving. Nia wondered that the squeeze had
ever been mapped. A quarterlan back, her heartiest curses had gone
out to the long-ago Sha-shakrieg who had blazed the trail she and
Varga followed. A sturdy bunch, for certes, and fearless, to have
pressed on through the confining darkness with its seemingly
endless twists and turns. A new feature, a bladelike ridge of
limestone on the floor of the tunnel, cut into her with each push
forward. Dust tainted with the faint smell of Varga’s blood filled
her nostrils, proving that he, too, wasn’t escaping unscathed from
the ordeal of the Crawl.

She wasn’t nearly as afraid of him as she was
of dying deep in the earth, trapped in the rough-edged tube
pressing against her from all sides. Spider people. What a strange
lot to have even found the snaky hole Varga called simply “Mekom.”
Watching Varga spin a web to get them out of the Mindao River Slot
had revealed some of their secrets to her. ’Twas skill backed by
strength and a sticky simple that allowed the Sha-shakrieg to sling
pryf
silk against a surface in a manner to make it hold, and
hold the weight of men.

The water in the Slot had been knee-high most
of the way, rising to their waists only at the end. Smooth
handholds had been carved into the Mindao cliffs at regular
intervals. For safety, Varga had told her, if perchance a rainstorm
up above sent water rushing down into the subterranean river. It
had not, and they’d been spared the ordeal of having to climb to
safety, truly like spiders on a wall.

The Ghranne Mekom was sparing them nothing.
’Twas all she could do to hold her panic at bay. It skittered along
the edge of her thoughts, taunting her with certain death if she
should fail—and she still had the Dangoes to face.

She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes
shut. She wanted to raise her head and could not. The endless miles
of earth above her were less than a hairbreadth from the back of
her neck. She felt rock press against her with every breath,
squeezing her. Her muscles were twitching beneath her skin,
clamoring for a release she couldn’t give them. She was packed into
the earth.

“Varga,” she said, wondering what was taking
him so long, and yet knowing. He was stuck. Naught else could have
kept him in the same stick-forsaken spot for so long. She should go
back. Save herself. Yet the way back was not so simple. Other small
tunnels connected to the Mekom. If she backed herself into one of
them, she might forever be lost.
Shadana
.

“Hold,” came the command again. “I’m almost
through.”

“V-varga. I... I...” The words lodged in her
throat, choking her. She coughed, and a tiny flume of dust kicked
up from the floor, making her cough more. Great misery!

Varga cursed under his breath and tried in
vain to move his lodged shoulders. His lie had done him no good.
She was faltering. In the Mekom, fortitude was the prerequisite of
survival, and hers had run out. He’d thought the Quicken-tree
warrior could beat the squeeze. It seemed he’d been wrong.

He swore again and tried once more to shift
his shoulders in a manner that would free him from the turn that
held him tight. When he’d felt the way grow too narrow, he’d tried
going back, and ’twas then he’d been caught, his shoulder snagging
on a projection of rock that had allowed him to enter the turn, but
would not allow him to retreat.

He had come this way before. Why not this
time? he wondered. He had twisted and squirmed, relaxed some
muscles and tightened others, yet still was held firm. He was no
heavier, no bigger. Verily, he’d lost some of his bulk since the
end of the Wars. Yet ’twas even less likely that the Crawl had
changed.

Or was it?

Had he not seen with his own eyes the great
tear through the crystal seal of Kryscaven Crater? The earth had
trembled deep to create such a chasm, and with deep trembling were
not other changes possible? Changes so minute that they would go
unnoticed until a man who had once passed through the Mekom could
no longer pass?

He swore softly between his teeth. They both
would die—unless he told her to go back and she had the strength to
do it.

“
Pwr wa ladth
.” He heard the faint
sound of her voice attempting song between bouts of coughing. A
ragged song would do him no good. What he needed was a cursed
double-jointed shoulder.

“
Pwr wa ladth. Fai quall
a’lomarian
.”

She struggled on behind him, her song
wavering with the tide of her fear. He was afraid too, but of
failure, not death.

“
Es sholei par es cant. Pwr wa ladth. Pwr
wa ladth
.”

’Twas one of the Quicken-tree’s green songs,
a chant of sunlight—not of its brightness and beauty, but of its
power beyond the glories of sight, the power of sunlight in dark
places, be they of the heart or the world.

Aye, he knew the songs of his enemies well.
He shifted himself again and moved nary a finger’s width, while she
sang behind him:

“Run deep. Run deep.

Pwr wa ladth. Pwr wa ladth.

Wind through leaf and stem and root.

Fai quall a’lomarian.

Flow like a river into the earth.

Es sholei par es cant.

Run deep. Run deep.

Pwr wa ladth. Pwr wa ladth.”

He’d thought the Dangoes would be their
greatest challenge, but it seemed the frozen place would not get
another chance at Varga of the Iron Dunes. He would die in the
Crawl like a worm.

But she need not.

“Nia—” He no sooner spoke her name than the
first tremor hit, scarce stronger than her voice, an odd whisper
through the rock. The second tremor was even fainter, but he felt
something give way. Another fierce twist and he was free. He
crawled at double speed for the end of the tunnel, pushing his pack
in front of him. A gust of wind announced the Kasr-al Loop, and in
a trice he was through the Mekom, tumbling out into the small
cavern that led to the main trail. He turned to go back for her,
but was stopped short by the sight of a square, dirt-encrusted hand
scrabbling for a hold on the rim of the Crawl. Relief flooded
through him.

He reached down and pulled her free, and she
came to her feet, shaky but able to stand on her own.

“
Shadana
.” The word blew from her
lips. “
Pwr wa ladth
.” She tucked a lanky strand of hair
behind her ear and set about dusting herself off.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“Nay. And you?”

“Of a piece. I’ve felt earthquakes in the
caverns before, but never while in the Mekom.”

She looked up with an annoyed frown. “ ’Twas
no earthquake, spider man. ’Twas me singing you out of that snag
you’d gotten yourself hung up on. And if—What’s that?” she asked
suddenly, growing still.

Taken aback by what she’d said, it took Varga
a moment to pick up on what had riveted her attention. Only a
moment, though, then he wondered how he’d missed it.

“Skraelings,” he said. The stench was wafting
into the cavern from the trail.

She went for her blade like a warrior and
came up empty-handed. Her expression darkened. “Ye cannot leave me
unarmed, Varga, not with skraelings on the trail.”

No faltering there, he thought, admiring the
speed of her response. And for all she didn’t know, she knew the
danger of skraelings.

“Aye,” he agreed, and unsheathed her
dreamstone dagger from his belt. He gave it and her sword to her
without another word, then walked over to where the cave emptied
out onto the tail end of the Kasr-al Loop. If she would go for his
back, he would as soon know it now. He slipped into his pack and
knelt on the trail. The causeway from which they would enter the
Dangoes lay not a lan from the cave.

She came up beside him and held her
lightblade out over the trail. “They’re moving west, toward
Merioneth.”

“Aye, and look here.” He pointed to a place
close to the tunnel wall where the finer dirt was wont to settle. A
paw print was clearly pressed into the dust.

“Wolves.” She touched the edge of the
track.

“
Uffern
wolves,” he corrected her.
“Wolves twisted to a skraeling master’s bidding. There’s no other
way to get them to run in the caves.”

She glanced back to the Crawl.

“Nay,” he told her. “There’s naught for us
but to go forward.”

“I wouldn’t do otherwise,” she assured him,
her affront showing in the squaring of her shoulders, “but if it
comes to retreat, I’d like to have a place where they can’t
follow.”

He nodded. “The Crawl would suffice, but
we’ll be far better served by the Dangoes. The ice caverns are not
a place for skraelings and their kind. If we make the causeway,
we’ll descend immediately.”

“If?”

He lifted a pinch of dust off the trail and
brought it to his nose. “The tracks are fresh. ’Tis only the
switchbacks in the trail that keep the sound of the skraelpack from
us.”

“And how many do you think there are?”

He shrugged and let the dirt fall from his
fingers. “More than enough to give us both a hero’s death.”

S
o there he was,
Llynya thought, staring down from her high perch at the man held
captive in Riverwood and the mare grazing by his side. Early
morning light filtered into the alder copse that held him,
revealing thick twinings of branches, boughs nesting together into
impassable walls, and the dense weave of shrubbery that left him no
escape. The man had entered the forest three days past, setting the
trees to trembling and filling the woods with warnings of danger.
Day and night the leaves fluttered
Beware
, until Merioneth
felt beset all around. Wolves and their kith ran free through
Riverwood along with all manner of cutpurses and robbers, but not
he, and Trig wanted to know why. To that end the captain had
succumbed to necessity and brought her down to the river with the
morning patrol. The man had answered no questions put to him, and
Trig would have her match her deep-scent skill against his
reticence.