Cursed Bones: Sovereign of the Seven Isles: Book Five (46 page)

Isabel cautiously worked her way to the first man, taking his sword and testing it, but finding that it had rusted to the point of uselessness. Deciding that none of the dead explorers’ equipment was still useful, she looked closer at the dust covering the floor and saw several sets of footprints, all stepping on white squares, leading to one passage. She made her way there, relieved to be out of the deadly chamber.

“This passage leads to where they were when I last checked on them,” Alexander said, floating into the darkness of the corridor.

It ran for hundreds of feet until Isabel could just make out a faint glow coming from the far end of the passage. Alexander vanished, leaving her in the darkness, so she could approach without alerting Hazel. She cast her shield spell while she walked, mentally preparing for the battle to come, knowing that she might have to fight Hector and Horace in the bargain.

The passage opened into a circular room. Two veins of softly glowing crystal rose from the floor to the ceiling. Within each was carved a chamber. A conduit of crystal running between both chambers held a panel with a single emerald set into it. Isabel heard whimpering before she saw the figure slumped to the floor in one of the chambers. She approached cautiously, her anger hot and ready. Seeing the form of Hazel in the chamber, she began speaking the words of her light-lance, forcefully and deliberately.

She raised her hand toward Hazel and the old witch looked up, tears streaming down her face, confusion and fear in her eyes.

“Isabel, please help me,” she said.

Isabel frowned in momentary confusion until she remembered that the focus of Hazel’s magic was belief.

Seeing Isabel’s resolve harden, Hazel sobbed and put her hands up in front of her face to ward against a spell that would kill her in a flash.

“Stop!” Alexander said, materializing before Hazel.

Isabel reined in her spell, letting go of the thought-form she was about to release into the firmament but holding on to her anger.

“Why? You said it yourself; we’re at war with her.”

“I don’t think this is Hazel,” Alexander said. “Her colors are all wrong.”

“Please help me, Isabel. It’s me … Ayela. Hazel stole my body.”

Isabel gasped, her eyes going wide. “Dear Maker, is such a thing even possible?”

“I think that’s what these chambers do,” Alexander said. “Also, her colors say she’s telling the truth.”

“How do we reverse it?” Isabel asked.

“I’m not sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say you would have to put them both back into these chambers again. I’ll go consult with the sovereigns and then find Hector, Horace, and Hazel. Take care of Ayela and make your way back to the black-and-white room. Wait for me there.”

Isabel nodded, going to Ayela. “I’m so sorry, Ayela. I didn’t know.”

“How could you? This kind of thing isn’t supposed to be possible. I’m the one who should apologize. I took you right to her and she left you in the swamp to die. I can’t believe I trusted her.”

“You believed what you wanted to believe,” Isabel said. “It happens to the best of us.”

“What am I going to do? I feel like my life is suddenly over.”

“I’m going to help you. I promise.”

“Thank you, Isabel,” Ayela said, wiping tears from her old and wrinkled face and looking up sheepishly. “Do you have anything to eat? Hazel took all of my things when she left me here.”

Isabel gave her a bag of dried apples and they started toward the black-and-white room.

Alexander appeared just before they arrived.

Chapter 38

“Isabel, you have to hurry,” Alexander said. “They’re down that passage. I think Hazel is about to sacrifice Horace to the ghidora. She’s preparing a spell, and he’s laid out on a table in front of a hideous-looking statue.”

Isabel raced across the black-and-white room, calling out to Ayela behind her, “Stick to the white squares only!”

The passage was a hundred feet long, opening into a giant cavern filled with cages and lined with doorways leading out of the room in every direction. She caught glimpses of the remains of unspeakable and indescribable creatures as she raced past the cages, following Alexander’s bobbling light.

Some of the cages contained magic circles cut into the stone just inside the bars, while others were ordinary iron cages that had long since rusted to the point of crumbling. Most contained long-dead corpses of unidentifiable creatures but a few were empty. Two still held live creatures, but fortunately both of those cages were still intact and the magic circles within were holding the unnatural creations of Siavrax Karth at bay. That didn’t stop those creatures from snapping and snarling at Isabel when she raced by.

She reached the threshold of a large doorway that used to hold double doors, but was now open to the cavern. She stopped in horror at the scene playing out before her under the flickering light of two torches.

Horace lay on a platform before the statue of a creature from out of a nightmare. Eight feet tall at the back with six-foot-wide shoulders, it stood on six powerful legs, each ending in seven clawed toes. It had four eyes, the lower two set closer together than the upper two, all of which looked like they moved independently, allowing for a very wide field of vision. Its mouth was almost two feet across and lined with razor-sharp teeth. Its long tail split into three, each ending in a blade a foot long.

Hazel, in Ayela’s body, stood before the platform, chanting the words to an ancient invocation while streamers of light flowed from Horace to the statue. Hector lay unconscious on the floor, oblivious to his brother’s plight.

“Stop!” Isabel cried, but she was too late. As the light stopped flowing from Horace, the creature came to life, its eyes glowing ember-red and each of the blades on its tail taking on the hue of flowing lava.

Hazel looked back and smiled as the demon bounded down a long hall that ended with a point of daylight from an opening in the side of the mountain.

“What have you done?!” Isabel demanded, drawing her dagger and advancing toward Hazel.

“I’ve just killed the leader of the Sin’Rath Coven,” Hazel said.

“By killing Horace?” Isabel glanced over at his withered and desiccated husk. His face was blackened, lips pulled away from his teeth, his eyes hollow and empty.

“A necessary sacrifice,” Hazel said. “The Sin’Rath must be destroyed, no matter the cost.”

The words hit Isabel like a slap in the face. She had uttered very similar words about Phane. And she’d meant them, yet looking at the cost Hazel had been willing to pay in order to deal a blow to the Sin’Rath, Isabel realized that some costs were too great, no matter the gain.

Hazel began whispering words under her breath. Sensing the threat, Isabel fled the chamber, taking a position behind a nearby pillar and casting a shield spell. She wasn’t sure what magic Hazel could wield and didn’t want to find out the hard way. If Hazel was able to charm her or even blow a pinch of henbane into her face, Isabel might be the next one sacrificed to the ghidora.

“You can’t hide from me,” Hazel said from inside the room. “And I fear you haven’t fully considered your tactical disadvantage. Do you really want to kill Ayela’s body? I’m sure you have plans to undo what I’ve done.” Her tone was taunting, filled with mirth.

Alexander appeared next to Isabel. “Slip up next to the doorway and be ready with your force-push. I’ll distract her.”

Isabel nodded and started to make her way around several cages so she could come up along the wall in the dark. Once in position, she saw herself step out from behind a pillar and advance toward the door as if she meant to murder Hazel … and Ayela with her.

“Come, Child, be reasonable,” Hazel said, a thinly veiled attempt to stall for time while the illusion of Isabel drew closer, becoming more vulnerable to Hazel’s magic with each step.

“There,” Hazel said with a triumphant smile as the illusion of Isabel entered the room. She clapped her hands once and the dust covering the section of the floor where the illusion stood rose up in a cloud surrounding her. When the illusion didn’t react, Hazel became alarmed. Isabel rolled around the edge of the door and unleashed her force-push. Hazel flew backward, tumbling to the floor and shaking her head before struggling to her feet.

Isabel was moving the moment she cast her spell, but Hazel regained her feet and quaffed a potion before she could reach her, vanishing with derisive laughter.

Ayela came into the room. Hearing her own laughter but not seeing her body, she backed up against the wall next to the door and shouted, “Give me my body back!” Laughter was the only response.

“Duck!” Alexander’s disembodied voice said.

Isabel saw a puff of powder appear before her; she immediately stopped breathing, closed her eyes, and rolled backward away from the threat, coming up with another force-push that fell on empty air.

“Your invisibility won’t last forever,” Isabel said, watching the dust on the ground for any hint of Hazel’s passage, straining to hear her footsteps or breathing.

Alexander appeared as a ball of light. “Target me,” he said.

Isabel didn’t hesitate, firing off a force-push that sent Hazel sprawling near the door, becoming visible a few moments after she hit the ground. Ayela lunged toward her, falling on top of her and trying to pin her to the ground, but her new body was no match for the youth and strength of her real body. Hazel easily overpowered her, tossing a pinch of powder into her face once she’d rolled to her feet.

Isabel raised her hand to cast another force-push, but Hazel fled into the menagerie. Ayela tried to regain her feet but collapsed, falling into a deep sleep.

“I’ll keep watch,” Alexander said. “See if you can wake Hector.”

“What about Hazel?”

“She can’t hide from me. Besides, you can’t leave them here like this. There’s no telling what’s lurking in the shadows just waiting for an easy meal.”

Isabel looked from Hector to Ayela and nodded reluctantly, her anger draining away, only to be replaced with sorrow. She went to Horace, shaking her head and wiping a tear from her face. He looked like he’d been dead for years, his body drained of every vestige of life.

Hector woke more easily than she’d expected, his eyes snapping open when she shook him by the shoulder. He looked up, confusion turning to alarm at the look on her face.

“I’m so sorry, Hector.”

He sat up, looking around, the haze of confusion fading slowly until he saw the form of his dead brother. He took a sharp breath and looked away, as if his unwillingness to believe the horrible reality of the situation could change it.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Who did this?”

“Hazel,” Isabel whispered.

“But … Hazel loves us.”

“No, she doesn’t. She was using you.”

“I don’t understand,” Hector said, stumbling to his feet and shambling over to his brother, staring at the desiccated corpse with disbelief, then breaking down and sobbing with his head resting on Horace’s breastplate.

Isabel sat down and cried quietly while Hector mourned the loss of his brother. He sobbed for several minutes before he tipped his head back and howled, shattering the silence with his anguish, his death knell reverberating off the ancient stone walls.

“Where is she?” he said, turning away from Horace.

“She fled,” Isabel said, regaining her feet.

“That’s not her?” Hector asked, pointing toward Ayela.

Isabel shook her head sadly. “That’s Ayela … Hazel switched bodies with her.”

He sniffed back his tears and looked at the ground. “Well then, it seems we both have a score to settle.”

“We all do,” Isabel said, taking Hector by the shoulders, “but we have to give Ayela her body back first. Do you understand, Hector?”

He looked at Ayela for a moment and nodded slowly. “Promise me one thing.”

Isabel nodded, knowing what he wanted without him voicing his request.

“Let me be the one to kill her,” Hector said.

She nodded again. “You have my word.”

Ayela didn’t wake quickly. After shaking her, gently slapping her face, and even splashing her with water, they decided they’d just have to wait, knowing full well that every minute widened the gap between them and Hazel.

Hector stood stock-still before the platform where his dead brother lay, a mask of desolation and resolve contorting his face. Isabel left him to his grief.

“You don’t have a sword,” he said, without looking away from his dead brother. “You should take Horace’s blades. They’ve served him well and I know he would want you to have them.”

“Are you sure?”

Hector nodded. “Did you see how she did this?”

“I was just a few minutes too late,” Isabel said, new tears filling her eyes. “Hazel was chanting a series of words over and over again, but I don’t remember what they were.”

“I think I know, I just don’t know how to read them,” he said, pointing to some writing engraved into the side of the platform. “Do you think Lord Reishi is watching?”

Alexander appeared beside him. “I’ve been here the whole time. I’m sorry for your loss, Hector. Your brother was a good man.”