Diviner (21 page)

Elyssa nodded. “I will.”

“What will that do?” Jason asked. “What’s so special about the pendant?”

“Do you remember when you slept against a tree shortly after the great storm?” Uriel asked.

“I remember.”

“While you slept, I took the time to study the pendant. It sparked a memory from long ago, but my mind was still awash in fear and dread. Once I came here, the old sizzle returned. That pendant was carved from manna wood. Do you know what people in our world use it for?”

“We chew the bark to relieve the effects of extane. It slows metabolism.”

“Correct, but the metabolism reducer is also effective as a sedative. If you burn it, inhaling the fumes will relax you, perhaps even put you to sleep. Back in my day, it was used to bring comfort to someone in great pain.”

“Okay,” Jason said. “That makes sense. Go on.”

Uriel nodded at Elyssa. “If you would be so kind, please read it for him.”

Elyssa lifted the pendant and set the edge close to her eyes. “The letters are tiny.” She squinted, reading out loud while turning the pendant. “The halves are cleaved. Life has triumphed over death.”

“What does that mean?” Jason asked.

“It’s a dedication to someone who died,” Elyssa said. “My mother gave the pendant to me. It was a gift from Marcelle, who carved it herself. When she was about fifteen years old, she watched the widow Halstead’s execution, and it hit her hard. After everyone but the executioner was gone, she asked him for the stake the widow was tied to. She sliced out a section and carved the design and the inscription. The message that husband and wife would be together again gave her solace.” “Solace,” Jason whispered.

Elyssa dropped the pendant to her chest. “Did you say something?”

“Just thinking out loud.” He refocused on her. “Why would she give something so important to your mother?”

“When Orion started accusing me of being a Diviner, my mother went through a lot of turmoil, so Marcelle gave it to her, thinking it would bring her comfort.”

“Did it?”

She shook her head. “Just the opposite. You see, the widow Halstead was a Diviner, so every time Mother looked at the pendant, she imagined me burning at the stake. She was going to give it back or throw it away, but I asked for it. Since you and I were both there when Orion had the widow burned at the stake, I thought the pendant might protect us. Kind of a silly, childish thing, but I believed it.”

“Not really childish.” Jason gazed at the pendant as it dangled in front of Elyssa’s red vest. “I remember being there with you. We were both scared, especially when Orion personally lit the wood. The look on his face gave me nightmares.”

“But I’ll wager that he didn’t gather the wood.” Uriel raised a finger. “I know a man who was an executioner, a man named Porter. He once told me his predecessor added green wood to the pyre to make it burn more slowly and cause more suffering. Porter altered that practice and substituted manna wood for the stake and the kindling. It burns quickly and eases the victim’s pain. I assume that became the common practice and continued through the widow Halstead’s day.”

“Probably,” Jason said. “The wood did burn quickly.”

“Our theory,” Uriel continued, “is untested, but a good one, I think. Elyssa reported that while she was healing you, the pendant began to glow and grew warm to the touch. Perhaps it absorbed her metabolic energy and transferred it to you. My hope is that she can do the same for Petra.”

“Energy to heal is one thing, but raising the dead?” Jason shook his head. “That’s asking a lot from a piece of manna bark.”

Elyssa lifted the pendant again. “It’s not the bark. It’s the Creator. He uses the bark to absorb energy from me. If I can seal the internal wounds, it could work.”

“I suppose it’s worth a try,” Jason said, “unless it weakens you too much.”

“I’m willing to take that risk.” Elyssa reached out her hand. “Come, Petra. I’m ready.”

A radiant outline of another hand appeared and clutched Elyssa’s. Petra’s spirit glided up to the top of the table and settled over her body. As she sank into her motionless shell, she slowly disappeared.

Deference jumped up and sat on the corner of the table. “If you don’t mind, please let me know what you see inside her.”

“Of course,” Elyssa said. “I need your medical expertise.”

Uriel touched one of the white manacles. “My concern is that Petra’s body might deteriorate rapidly when I take these off, so if she doesn’t respond, we must end the test immediately.”

Elyssa nodded. “I understand.”

Uriel squeezed one of the manacles, and a fastener under Petra’s wrist popped open. After he pulled it off, he did the same to the other. “Now, Elyssa,” he said, stepping back, “if you will proceed.”

Standing with her waist pressed against the edge of the table, Elyssa slid her hand across Petra’s abdomen, her fingers touching her shirt with a gentle caress. Her glow left a trail of dim radiance that faded as she moved.

Closing her eyes, she dipped her head. “The stardrop is embedded in her stomach lining. Light is flowing from it and up into her esophagus.” Her hand glided from one spot to another. “I sense no perforations and no blood.”

“She’s been moved around a lot,” Deference said, “so blood might have drained from her abdomen. It also could have clotted.”

“That makes sense.” Elyssa shifted her hand to Petra’s sternum. “Her heart is motionless, as we expected. It looks like a normal heart, at least from pictures I’ve seen.”

Deference slid closer, adding her aura’s glow to Elyssa’s. “Do you see any scalding? If the stardrop burns, it could have sealed her entire insides.”

Elyssa shook her head. “The lining seems the same as Jason’s, moist and smooth everywhere.”

“Something must have killed her. If not bleeding or scalding, then what?”

“I don’t know.” Elyssa opened her eyes and looked at Deference. “I’m not a Starlighter. I can’t recall history and watch it happen.”

Jason stepped close to the table. “Elyssa, you have Starlighter gifts. You said so yourself.”

“Not all of them. I’m not a storyteller.”

“While we were walking to the dragon village, you said the story in the book came to life for you.”

“Yes, but that was in the presence of a stardrop and that book I got in the Basilica. I could never replicate that.”

Jason pointed at Petra’s abdomen. “There’s a stardrop in there.”

“But no book. I think I would need some kind of historical record.”

“Everything that happened is stored in her brain,” Deference said. “It’s better than a book.”

“Maybe.” A skeptical frown turned Elyssa’s lips. “But how could her brain hold any memories? It’s dead.”

Deference touched Petra’s head, setting it aglow. “Her spirit is inside her body. The memories are in there somewhere.”

Closing her eyes again, Elyssa moved her hand back to Petra’s stomach. “I’ll follow the stardrop’s energy and see what I can find.” Her fingers glided up Petra’s midsection, across her throat, and over her face until they rested on her forehead. “The light surrounds her brain, like a bath of radiance.”

As Elyssa’s pendant took on a reddish blush, something hot stung Jason’s chest. He laid a hand over the spot where the litmus finger rested under his skin. It hadn’t throbbed like this in a long time. What might it mean? A reminder that he had a piece of a Starlighter dwelling within? Maybe the infusion of stardrop crystals into his bloodstream had somehow stimulated it.

Elyssa’s brow lifted. “I found something. I’m seeing lots of images, and I hear whispered voices, but they’re coming so fast. They won’t stop long enough for me to figure out what’s going on.”

Jason looked at Elyssa’s glowing hand and imagined the rapid scenes and voices traveling from the point of contact up to her mind. It was like the whisperers that streamed from the star chamber and passed him by, leaving fractured messages he couldn’t piece together. If Koren and Cassabrie pulled these messages out of the air and created visible tales with them, they could probably do the same thing with these memories.

“I have an idea,” Jason said.

Elyssa kept her eyes closed. “What?”

He slid his hand into hers and pulled his shirt down at the collar. “Let’s see what the Starlighter can show you now.” The patch of skin over the litmus finger glowed, pulsing in time with the piercing stings. Still holding Elyssa’s hand, he leaned over Petra. The light washed over Elyssa’s fingers and Petra’s forehead.

A new furrow etched Elyssa’s brow. “The images are slowing down, and the voices aren’t so quiet.”

“Good.” Jason stretched his collar further. The litmus finger stung worse than ever. “Let us know what you see.”

“I see Koren and a dragon, a mean one. It looks like the room where they’re keeping Cassabrie.” Her eyelids quivered but stayed closed. “Yes. Yes, it is that room. I see her floating. The stardrop is on the floor. A hand reached out and grabbed it.”

“I think you’re seeing memories from physical vision,” Deference said. “If you want to see what happened inside her body, maybe you should look for other input.”

Elyssa moved her hand across Petra’s scalp, combing through her hair with her fingers. “No, nothing there…. Not here either…. Ah! I might have something. I’m connected to some kind of recording. It’s … it’s so strange. I feel like … like …” She moved her hand to Petra’s mouth and let it glide down the outside of her throat. “Something weird is happening to me.”

“What?” Jason asked. “Can you describe it?”

Elyssa gasped. “It burns! It burns so badly!” She slid her hand down Petra’s chest. “Oh! Oh, help me!” Her own chest heaved. The pendant shone like Solarus, fiery orange. Lifting her head, she let out a wild scream.

“Elyssa!” Jason compressed her hand. “Are you all right? Should you break the connection?”

Her eyes clenching shut, she shook her head hard. Then, panting, she whispered, “Too hot. It’s too hot. I cannot stay in this oven.”

Like a rising mist, Petra’s spirit lifted from her lifeless body, her face mimicking Elyssa’s pain-streaked expression.

“The fire burns!” Elyssa shouted. “Oh, it burns! I must leave!”

“No!” Jason reached for Petra’s spirit, but his hand passed right through. “You have to stay! Crawl back into your body. You have to stay there!”

As Petra sank back in, Elyssa panted. “I’m inside. I feel so hot, so very hot!”

Deference touched Petra’s arm. “Her body is getting warmer.”

“She has the energy now,” Uriel said, “but she’s not breathing.”

“We have to start her heart.” Deference laid her hands on Petra’s chest, one on top of the other. “Jason, put your hands here and push in time with your own heartbeat.”

Jason copied Deference’s pose. “Like this?”

“Yes. Not too hard.”

“How hard is not too hard?”

“Just don’t break her rib cage.”

Jason pushed, compressing Petra’s chest and imagining his heartbeat as he repeated the action again and again, but with his own heart thumping so rapidly, might his rhythm be too fast?

“Help me!” Elyssa screamed. “Something is grabbing me! It’s dragging me into a dark place! I’m being swallowed!”

Jason pulled back. “Is she all right?” “That’s better,” Elyssa said. “I’m coming back out now.”

“No!” Uriel pushed Jason’s hands back in place. “Keep it up! You almost had her! Elyssa isn’t telling the history; she is telling us what Petra feels now.”

Jason compressed her chest again, trying to maintain the same rhythm. He closed his eyes and called out, “Tell me when to stop!”

“No!” Elyssa cried out. “It’s sucking me back in!”

Uriel pumped his fist in time with Jason’s pushes. “Don’t listen to her! She’s almost there!”

Petra’s head jerked to the side. Her arms flailed. Her chest heaved, sucking in a deep breath.

“Now, Jason!” Uriel shouted. “Let her go!”

fourteen

 

J
ason leaped back. Petra’s eyes shot open. She inhaled through her nose and looked around. For a moment, her eyes stayed wide, the muscles in her face tense, but as her breathing slowed, she relaxed. Looking at Elyssa, she lifted a hand and set it gently on hers.

Elyssa’s face turned pale. Her legs buckled, and she collapsed.

“Elyssa!” Jason dropped to his knees and cradled her. “Can you hear me?”

Deference jumped from the table and joined him. “She’s breathing.”

“Energy transfer,” Uriel said. “Her metabolic rate is likely below a level that can support consciousness, but since the drain has stopped, it’s reasonable to hope she will stabilize.”

Jason touched the pendant, still hot and glowing. This piece of manna wood had literally absorbed Elyssa’s energy. Uriel was probably right about her recovery, but how long would it take?

Petra rose to a sitting position, then slid her body to the edge of the table.

“Wait,” Uriel said as he grasped her arm. “Are you sure you can get up?”

She nodded and, with his help, lowered herself to the floor. She sat next to Jason and laid a hand on Elyssa’s cheek, looking at Jason with forlorn eyes, as if Elyssa’s condition might be her fault.

“It’s okay,” Jason said. “You’re alive, and she’ll be okay.

It’s worth it.”

Uriel clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Well, then, it seems that the stardrop did not harm Petra’s body. It merely scorched the spiritual plane so thoroughly that Petra’s spirit could not stay. She literally leaped out of the oven her body had become.”

Jason looked into Petra’s glistening eyes. They reflected a blend of joy and sadness. “That’s probably what the Reflections Crystal does. When I was chained to it, it seemed like I was trying to jump out of my body, like being barefoot on hot sand.”

“Yet the stardrop remains, so it is only the initial entry that purges the body. After that, it seems that the spirit is able to dwell there without a problem.”

Petra grasped Jason’s hand and clasped it in both of hers. She nodded at the clasp, her eyes wide. A weak glow surrounded her skin, making it shimmer.

“That’s strange,” Deference said. “Her skin looks like Elyssa’s now.”

“What?” Elyssa opened her eyes. “Did someone call me?”

Jason smiled and took her hand. “We were just talking about Petra and her new radiance.”

“I remember falling. Did you catch me?”

“Not quite. You pretty much crumpled.” Jason pushed her hair back from her forehead. “Do you want to try to stand?”

She smiled. “In a minute. I’m as dizzy as a spinning top.”

Uriel crouched between Jason and Petra. “We have learned two important facts. First, although a stardrop is fatal, a person is able to be resurrected if his or her spirit stays in proximity. Second, Elyssa has the power to bring about that resurrection using the manna pendant. The process drains her, but she seems to be recovering quickly.”

“Let’s see how quickly.” Elyssa reached out to Uriel. “Will you please help me up, kind sir?”

Uriel pulled Elyssa to her feet, then helped Jason to his.

Petra grasped Jason’s sleeve and gestured with her fingers.

“She’s using sign language.” Jason looked into her eyes. “We don’t understand. Can you write?” Petra nodded.

“We have quill and parchment right over there,” Uriel said, pointing at the workbench.

Jason led Petra to the bench, dipped the quill into the ink, and handed it to her. She wrote on a blank parchment in a neat, dark script, re-inking the quill with every few strokes.

As the words formed, Jason read them out loud. “I want to go back to the Southlands. I saw Koren fly away in Exodus, and I want to help her. I saw Taushin, the black dragon, take a long pole from the castle and fly away with it. It had a sharp point, so I think it is a weapon.”

“It sounds like a spear.” Jason tapped on the parchment. “Can you draw a picture?”

Again, Petra nodded. First, she drew long, delicate curves until she formed a circle, Then, after drawing a girl inside the circle, she made a man throwing a spear in her direction.

Deference drew close to the parchment. Her gesturing hand stayed visible as she spoke. “I told her this story. A long time ago, a man threw a spear at Exodus. The spear is stored down near the star chamber.” As she paused, the hand disappeared. “Or it
was
stored down there.”

Petra nodded and wrote more words, this time scratching them down quickly.

“I think Taushin took it,” Jason read. “He is blind, but somehow he found it without Koren’s eyes.”

Deference glided back from the workbench. “That’s no ordinary spear. Arxad told me some secrets about it.”

Uriel crossed his arms over his chest. “You might as well tell us everything you know.”

With her body fading in and out of visibility, Deference gestured again with her hands. “The tip is made of a metal that we no longer have in our world and one that you never had in yours. Arxad called it an alloy, and it was able to penetrate the star. Not only that, it had a tube attached near the point that was filled with a substance Arxad called gunpowder. It was used in powerful weapons hundreds of years ago. If it burns, it can destroy almost anything in a huge fireball.”

“But it didn’t destroy Exodus,” Jason said. “Why not?”

“For some reason, the tube didn’t burn. It’s still attached to the spear.”

“Why?” Elyssa asked. “It sounds too dangerous to leave lying around.”

Shrugging, Deference said, “We consider it to be pretty secure that far under the castle. Arxad called the spear an antiquity, a reminder of the evils of the past. It’s a mystery how a blind dragon could find it among all the other antiquities in the storage room. Not only that, it’s a long way down those stairs, and it’s too dangerous to fly blind.”

Elyssa touched Petra’s shoulder. “You said Koren wasn’t there, but was anyone else with the dragon to guide him?”

Petra shook her head.

“At least no one she could see,” Uriel said. “There are quite a number of invisible people here.”

Deference appeared for a moment, a hurt expression on her face. “Mr. Blackstone, I’m sure the existence of invisible people is frightening, but you don’t know them as well as I do. No one here would lead Taushin down the stairs.”

Jason imagined an invisible spirit helping the black dragon find his way down the stairs. When he made the journey himself, he had two guides, Deference in front and Cassabrie inside. Between Deference’s gentle manner and Cassabrie’s comforting words, the downward part had been relatively easy. And Deference’s denial that any castle resident would help Taushin rang true, but what about Cassabrie? Where was she now? Did anyone really know whose side she was on?

Breathing a sigh, he focused on the spot where Deference was seconds ago. “Can you check the storage room? I’m not saying Petra’s wrong about seeing a spear, but maybe the one she saw isn’t the one that pierced Exodus.”

“I will,” Deference said. “Now that Petra is alive, the rest of you should go to the main floor. Edison and Randall will want to hear the news.”

Elyssa and Deference used the cylindrical capsule to transport Jason, Uriel, and Petra to the lower floor, where Deference opened the corridor wall with a wave of her hand. Apparently security wasn’t as tight going through in the opposite direction.

When they arrived in the corridor, Deference led them to a table that abutted a wall at the side. At least a dozen mugs sat in a row near the table’s edge. “Good,” she said, gesturing toward the mugs. “Resolute has seen to your nourishment. Take your fill. We call it secret soup, because we have no way to taste it, but the king says it will supply your bodies for quite some time.”

She gestured toward the main entrance. “Will someone go with me? That way I can hunt for the spear while someone else finds the others and guides them here.”

Uriel picked up one of the mugs and bowed. “I will be glad to accompany you.”

“Good. If they’re not in the foyer, you can help me search for them outside.”

Uriel and Deference walked down the corridor side by side. Like a glowing cape, her radiance trailed her body, taking most of the light with her.

While Jason, Elyssa, and Petra drank the warm, bland soup, a dim, ambient glow and Elyssa’s faint aura provided enough light to see the white dragon mural, but the black dragon on the other side was no more than a vague shadow.

Petra walked to the opposite wall and laid a hand on the black dragon’s wing.

“Is that the black dragon you saw?” Elyssa asked. Petra nodded.

“Probably Taushin,” Jason said, letting the word rest in the air for a moment. “Fellina called him a dark pretender.”

“And he hatched from a black egg,” Elyssa added. “Everything about him spells darkness. If he really has that spear, Koren’s probably in big trouble.”

While they waited, still drinking from the mugs, Petra taught Jason and Elyssa the basics of her sign language, including the letters of the alphabet. As she repeated them several times, Jason studied the finger positions. They were simple, but it would take him much longer than a few minutes to memorize them. Elyssa, on the other hand, picked them up quickly. While they practiced, Elyssa told Jason everything Randall had told her about his time in Mesolantrum, including Cassabrie’s strange behavior at the portal site.

Soon, Uriel, Randall, Orion, and Jason’s father joined them. As they approached, Orion’s stare locked on Elyssa. She turned away and slid close to Jason, linking index fingers with him. “I’m not sure I’m ready to go into battle with him,” she whispered.

“I know what you mean. Let’s just stay calm and see what happens.”

Jason let go of Elyssa’s finger and embraced his father and Randall in turn. Elyssa gave both a hug as well, but when she came to Orion, she backed away and turned her head.

Giving Elyssa only a brief glance, Orion extended his hand toward Jason. “It’s good to see you again. I hope there are no hard feelings about my remark at the invocation.”

“If you mean the remark about sultry witches looking for a callow catch …” Jason shook his head. “I haven’t thought about it since that night.”

Orion lowered his brow. “Yes … I see.”

As they exchanged stories, the newcomers drank their fill from the mugs. Elyssa said nothing, though she occasionally cast a suspicious glance Orion’s way.

When the last story ended, Jason looked around at each tired and worried face. “We have a lot to do, but I have some questions. First, where is Arxad?”

Randall pointed toward the entry with his thumb. “He went to find Fellina, because we’ll need more than one dragon to get us to the Southlands. He didn’t say when he’d be back.”

“Okay. How about Cassabrie? Where is she now?”

“No one has seen her since we came through the portal,” Uriel said. “We discussed this earlier, and we have conflicting opinions concerning what her motivations might be.”

Orion crossed his arms over his chest. “You know my opinion. She’s a devil. She’ll be our undoing if we don’t watch out.”

Randall snorted. “You think every unusual female is a devil.”

“Mind your tongue, boy,” Orion said, pointing at Randall with a rigid finger. “When a girl spins into existence in a swirl of dirt and feels as cold as a winter wind, you can’t tell me there is no evil afoot. I learned the hard way.”

“The hard way?” Jason asked. “Care to tell us?”

Orion turned toward the table and fingered one of the mugs. “I don’t see why that’s necessary. My past is inconsequential.”

“Inconsequential?” Elyssa grabbed his sleeve and jerked him around. “Listen, after all the years of torturing my family with your rabid Diviner hunts, if you think I’m going to just forget about it and pretend nothing’s wrong while I risk my life alongside you, then you’re more demented than I thought.”

His brow knitting, Orion glared at her, but after a short stare down, he let out a sigh. “Very well.” He leaned back against the table, his hands gripping the edge. “When I was a boy of thirteen, I was lying in bed late at night and heard a bird that sang so beautifully I had to see it. I followed its song deep into the forest, and there I met a young woman. Although the dim moonlight prevented me from seeing her face clearly, I could tell that her skin was as pale as a cadaver’s. Yet to me she was the most alluring creature I had ever seen—long hair that caressed the shoulders of a white gown and eyes that sparkled green in the moonlight. Like Cassabrie, she radiated cold, and I stood petrified as if frozen to the ground, so she sang a song that calmed my fears, trilling with a voice every bit as beautiful as that of the songbird. When she finished, she told me that she had led me into the forest to tell me something. She said that my parents and two sisters had been killed in a fire.”

Orion’s voice began to quaver. “I ran home as quickly as I could and found our house engulfed in flames. I threw bucket after bucket of water from our horse trough, but it wasn’t enough. When our closest neighbor arrived, he broke through the flames and carried out my two sisters. They were dead, burned beyond recognition. Later, after the fire dwindled, my neighbor found a lantern with an insignia that was foreign to Mesolantrum. I concluded that the woman of the forest used the lantern to set the fire and called me away because she knew I was awake, and she didn’t want me to douse the fire and rescue my family. I swore that day that I would find every sorceress in the land, whether Diviner or witch, and make them suffer in the flames that their kind inflicted on my family.”

He finished with a sigh and picked up one of the mugs. Swirling the contents, he stared at it in silence.

Jason studied his posture. He seemed relieved to shed the burden of the horrible event. But was it all an act? Jason scanned the faces in the corridor. Uriel and Petra had glistening eyes, while those who knew Orion, especially Elyssa, displayed furrowed brows, though Randall’s seemed more pensive than skeptical.

“So,” Jason said, “do you think that girl was Cassabrie or someone else?”