Sovereign Stone (56 page)

Chloe spun into a ball of light. “Darkness is near,” she said in his mind.

Alexander didn’t need her warning, although he did appreciate it. He was staring at a demon the likes of which he’d never seen and could not even have imagined. It was a black orb easily five feet in diameter. It had no eyes, ears, or nose—but it did have a mouth that seemed to split the orb in half and opened with row after row of razor-sharp teeth. Sprouting from the rest of the slick black orb were at least twenty tentacles that ended in heavy, club-like bulbs glistening with a thick, viscous-looking substance.

Even though it had no eyes, it started right toward him with surprising speed, running on four tentacles while the others flailed about looking for a victim. It closed the distance quickly and thrust three of its tentacles at Alexander. He tried to retreat down the staircase while drawing the Thinblade. The demon would have had him had it not been trapped within the circle; its tentacles stopped as if they’d smashed into a wall when they came to the edge of the magical barrier.

Its mouth came next as it thrust itself at Alexander with a fury that was terrifying. He saw the giant maw filled with teeth crash into the magical barrier and rebound from the impact. The creature roared with rage and frustration. The sound was like nothing Alexander had ever heard. It was deafening and terrible. Worse, the colors of the thing were so dark and hateful, they made Alexander’s eyes hurt and his soul squirm. He slowly retreated down the stairs to the room below, while trying to school his breathing and calm his trembling.

“We have to find another way,” Alexander said, still shaken from the encounter. “We’ll go down to the sky bridge and cross to the other tower.”

Everyone looked alarmed and a bit wary. They’d all heard the beast but none had seen it except Alexander. Anatoly asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“What was that?”

Alexander shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. It was a big black orb with a huge mouth and a bunch of dangerous-looking tentacles. Whatever it was, I’m just glad it’s trapped inside a magic circle.”

“How long can a circle like that hold a demon?” Jack asked.

“As long as the circle remains physically intact,” Lucky said. “It may have been trapped in that chamber since the Reishi fell.”

Jack whipped out his notebook and started writing furiously.

They descended to the level of the sky bridge and cautiously peered out the door. Alexander threw himself back when he saw the wyvern rider perched on the bridge raise her hand. His head just cleared the door frame when a blast of white-hot light stabbed past him and burned a hole three inches deep into the stone wall on the opposite side of the chamber.

He stayed well clear of the door and used his all around sight to look at his adversary. The wyvern was facing the doorway with its head pulled back like a cobra ready to strike. Its taloned hind feet gripped both railings, and its wings were poised to thrust it into the air.

A woman with blond hair and golden-brown eyes was mounted on the wyvern. She was pretty, except for the fact that she was trying to kill him. Her hair reminded him of Abigail’s shade of silvery blond. She was holding her hand out toward the door, waiting for another opportunity to strike with her magical fire.

“We will never permit you to have the Sovereign Stone, Phane!” she shouted.

Alexander had to replay her statement in his mind to be sure he’d heard her correctly. Even after he was certain of what she had said, it made no sense. He gave Lucky a quizzical look, but only got a shrug of confusion back.

“I am Alexander Ruatha,” he shouted. “Phane is my enemy.”

There was a pause. Alexander watched her with his all around sight. She looked confused for a moment before certainty returned to her expression.

“You’re a liar. The Ruathan line was destroyed in the Reishi War.”

Another blast of light leapt from her hand. This time it wasn’t concentrated in a beam, instead it was a flood of such intense brilliance that it would have dazzled Alexander if his eyes were open. He saw everything through his all around sight. The wash of brilliant, scintillating white light flooded through the door. His friends all covered their eyes, but a moment too late. They were temporarily blinded by the brightness of it.

A moment later, the wyvern launched itself into the air and in the same moment, thrust its tail underneath itself and through the doorway. Alexander saw it coming just in time and drew the Thinblade. The tail reached ten feet inside the room, but before it could thrash around and hurt anyone, Alexander came up with his blade and sliced it cleanly off.

The wyvern roared and beat its wings furiously before turning into a diving glide to get distance from the source of its sudden pain. Alexander stepped out onto the balcony and saw another wyvern coming. It looked like it was going to attack the bridge with its tail. He unslung his bow, smoothly nocked an arrow and sent it at the wyvern’s head. The beast dove and went under the bridge, then banked hard to avoid crashing into the third tower.

Alexander and his companions raced across the bridge, trying to regain their full vision. They reached the other side and entered a room that used to be a study or a library; it was in such a dilapidated state that it was hard to tell what purpose it once served. Alexander wasted no time. He found the staircase leading up. The next few rooms were much the same.

They stopped briefly to let everyone rest their eyes in safety.

Alexander led the way up to the next level and then the next. He wasn’t interested in looking for trinkets or treasures in the long-unused workrooms or laboratories. He had his eye on the prize.

In the back of his mind, the words of the wyvern rider nagged at him. She thought he was Phane. And she was trying to stop him from getting the Sovereign Stone. There was a scrap of hope in this new understanding. The wyvern riders saw Phane as their enemy. If he could convince them that he wasn’t Phane, maybe they could form an alliance, and even more importantly, maybe they would release Isabel and Abigail.

But then, if they thought he was Phane, why had they taken his wife and sister? What would they want with them, if not information? The thought of either of them being tortured made him nauseous. He had to push that idea out of his mind and cling to the hope that they were alive and safe. When he reached the level of the sky deck, his focus returned to where he was and what he was doing.

They entered a room with a wrap-around balcony. A few windows looked out on the surrounding countryside. An open double door led to the sky deck and a door on the opposite side led to the balcony.

In its glory, the room would have been impressive. The view was magnificent. The sun was just slipping toward the horizon and wisps of clouds traced streamers across the distant sky ablaze with orange and red. The colors washed across the forests and rangeland of the Reishi Isle and painted the landscape with a thousand soft hues, ranging from deep purple to vibrant yellow to fiery red.

“Even in a place as dark and dangerous as this, the world still has the capacity for indescribable beauty,” Chloe said aloud with a tone of deep reverence.

Alexander smiled at her ability to stop and appreciate beauty even here, but then a thunderous roar broke the serenity of the moment as a wyvern descended on the sky deck. Alexander spun and knew in an instant that the wyvern was making a fatal mistake. Stretched across the deck were three layers of smoke that seemed to hang in place in spite of the breeze. The layers floated one foot, three feet, and five feet above the deck, blanketing the entire area and shining with deadly magic.

As the wyvern landed, all three layers of magical energy glowed brightly, cutting the beast and its rider into pieces in an instant. The wyvern fell in chunks all over the sky deck without so much as a whimper. The rider was cut off at the knees. He hit the ground hard and screamed. When he tried to rise up, he passed through the lowest layer of magical energy, which lit up again, cutting him in half across the torso.

Everyone froze in place, shocked by the sudden carnage.

Alexander cautiously approached the doorway. He stopped short of the threshold and examined the magical fields that still shimmered with deadly power. He carefully held an arrow out into one of the layers but nothing happened. Perhaps it was triggered by living beings rather than inanimate objects.

His friends stood a step behind him.

“Lucky, can you see the trap?”

“No, just the effects of it.”

“Can you see the location of the Sovereign Stone, Little One?” Alexander thought to Chloe.

“Yes, it’s near the railing midway between this tower and the one with the darkness in it,” she answered silently.

Alexander looked across the sky deck to the other tower and saw the tentacle demon pressed up to the edge of its magical prison, eager to get out so it could feed. He glanced to the third tower and saw the telltale colors of life within.

Jataan P’Tal stood watching him from the shadows. Alexander quickly withdrew behind the cover of a stone wall. There were over a dozen men with P’Tal. He had no doubt seen the effects of the trap and wouldn’t try to cross the sky deck, but he was still far too close for comfort. Alexander knew all too well how quickly and accurately Commander P’Tal could throw a javelin.

“The Reishi Protectorate are in the other tower,” Alexander said, pointing toward the enemy.

The Rangers took up positions around the room, at the windows and guarding both staircases.

“Chloe, can you pull the Sovereign Stone back into this world and bring it to me?” Alexander asked her out loud.

She shook her head. “The Stone is entangled with the bodies of Malachi Reishi and Nicolai Atherton. I can pull it into this world, but their corpses will come as well. And once it is free of the aether, I won’t be strong enough to move something as big as the Sovereign Stone. It’s easily three times my weight.”

Alexander smiled at the simple logic of it. He hadn’t given much thought to the way she must see the world. She was only three inches tall and weighed about an ounce. It only made sense that she wouldn’t be strong enough to do what he asked.

“Lucky, do you have a roll of sturdy string?”

He nodded and started rummaging around in his bag for a moment before he produced a roll of lightweight but very strong string and handed it to Alexander.

He ran out a length of about sixty feet and handed the end to Chloe.

“Take this out to the place where the Stone is,” Alexander said. “Once you bring it back into this world, tie the string to the Stone and I’ll pull it to me. Chloe, be careful and stay low. The magic that killed that wyvern is floating about a foot off the deck.”

She flew up, kissed him on the cheek, took the string and flew not an inch off the deck, stopping about fifty feet from the door. A moment later she spun into a ball of scintillating white light and vanished. Alexander held his breath.

A moment passed.

Then another.

He started to worry. He’d bonded with Chloe for this task, but he found his worry was for her safety. He loved her and couldn’t stand the thought of losing her too.

She flared back into existence in a brilliant ball of light and settled to the ground with the corpses of two men locked in a bear hug. They were frozen solid and hadn’t decayed a bit in two thousand years. Around the neck of the man wearing the polished armor was a heavy gold chain. As gravity pulled on them for the first time in millennia, the Sovereign Stone rolled out from between them and fell to the ground. Chloe tied the end of the string to the chain.

“I’m ready, My Love,” she thought to Alexander.

“Well done, Little One. Remember to stay low,” he thought back to her.

Gently, he pulled the string. There was a bit of resistance as the chain stuck to the frozen clothing of Malachi Reishi’s corpse, but then it broke free and slipped from around his neck, clattering to the stone floor of the sky deck. Alexander carefully started dragging the Sovereign Stone.

Before he’d pulled it half the distance, the temperature fell quickly as two apparitions flickered into existence. They were silvery, translucent silhouettes of the men they had once been.

Malachi Reishi’s face contorted in rage and hatred for a brief moment before the Sovereign Stone glowed bright red and his form was drawn into it in a whirling cone of magical energy.

Nicolai Atherton smiled and waved in gratitude to Alexander before he flickered out of sight. From very far away, Alexander heard him say, “Thank you,” and then he was gone.

As he watched the two ghosts move on to their final resting places, Alexander heard one of the Rangers call out, “They’re on the move.”

He started pulling the Stone toward him more quickly. Chloe was out of danger and at his side when a Wyvern flew over and cast a javelin down at him. It missed, but not by much. He gave the Stone a yank and it skittered across the floor of the sky deck and into the tower room.

The chain was made of heavy gold links a quarter inch across. The Stone itself was a blood-red, teardrop-shaped gem the size of a walnut. It was polished smooth and fastened to the chain with a heavy gold clasp. Alexander held the stone up by the chain for all to see. There was a cheer from the Rangers. Lucky smiled with unabashed joy. Anatoly gave Alexander the lopsided grin that meant he was proud of him. Jack smiled with boyish joy even as the lines to a song began forming in his mind.