Sovereign Stone (62 page)

“What of these two? Do you trust them?” Alexander asked, motioning to Jataan and Boaberous.

Jack shrugged. “From the moment they realized you were bonding to the Sovereign Stone, they’ve acted to protect and preserve you. After the past several months, I’m skeptical but hopeful. Alexander, how is it that the Stone bonded to you?”

“Apparently the Reishi line is an offshoot of the Ruathan line. I’ll tell you the rest later.” He turned to Lucky. “How bad is it?”

“He’ll mend by morning well enough to travel, although it will be several days before he’s fully recovered. I gave him the healing potion from your pouch.”

“Good. Lieutenant Wyatt, report,” Alexander said to the Ranger commander.

“I have fourteen Rangers, none are injured. We’ve successfully repelled the Lancer attack from below but didn’t pursue the three that fled. I have a scout upstairs who reports that the wyvern riders are swarming around the Keep, but they’ve made no attempt to enter or attack.”

Alexander turned back to Lucky. “Can Anatoly be moved without killing him?”

“Yes, but I’d rather not. Moving him now will delay his healing.”

Alexander shook his head. “The Gates are open. Phane’s army on Karth is probably pouring into Ruatha as we speak. I have to get to the Gate Room and I don’t want to divide our forces. Lieutenant Wyatt, make a stretcher with spears and a blanket. I’m going upstairs to get my bearings.”

Alexander started for the staircase. Jataan nodded to Boaberous who went ahead while he followed behind. Alexander stopped and faced Jataan.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re protecting you, Lord Reishi.”

Alexander studied his colors for a long moment but saw only sincerity. He turned without a word and went upstairs. Boaberous was crouched down next to the door leading out onto the sky deck, peering into the night. A Ranger scout was at the door leading onto the balcony. A wyvern streaked by outside as Alexander and Jataan made their way to the Ranger.

“Report,” Alexander said.

“Lord Alexander . . .” the Ranger said but before he could continue, Jataan cut him off.

“He is now Lord Reishi. Please address him as such.”

Alexander frowned and the Ranger blustered a bit, “I’m sorry, Lord Reishi, I meant no disrespect,” he said with a look of confusion.

Alexander shook his head and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Titles mean very little to me, so don’t worry about it. For what it’s worth, I’m just as confused by this turn of events as you are. What are the wyvern riders up to?”

“I count over fifty, now that their reinforcements have arrived. Most are perched on the towers and battlements, but a few continue to circle the Keep. They’ve made no move to attack, so I suspect they intend to wait for us to leave.”

Alexander nodded and started to go out onto the balcony, but Jataan stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “What do you intend to do, Lord Reishi?”

Alexander’s anger flared and he didn’t try to hide it. “I need to see the stars, so I can figure out which way north is.”

Jataan nodded and slipped out onto the balcony. He looked up to the sky for a moment, then dodged to the side with frightening speed as a javelin dropped from above almost straight down on his position. It missed by only a few inches and buried six inches into the stone floor. Jataan returned to the cover of the room.

“North is that way,” he said, pointing as if nothing had happened.

“Where’d that javelin come from?”

“There’s a rider on top of this tower.”

Alexander nodded. “We have to get to that tower,” he said, pointing to the tower where Jataan and his men had been waiting when Alexander arrived the evening before. Boaberous stood and made a move toward the sky deck.

“Stop!” Alexander commanded.

The giant stopped dead in his tracks and looked at Alexander with confusion.

“The sky deck is trapped. If you set foot out there, you’ll be cut in three. We need to find another way to get over there.”

Boaberous looked at Alexander and then at the sky deck and the carnage of the dead wyvern and nodded slowly.

They returned to the level below and found that the Rangers had secured Anatoly to a makeshift stretcher, and two of their biggest men were ready to carry him. Alexander didn’t want to risk any further injury to Anatoly but he knew that every passing moment meant more enemy soldiers on Ruathan soil.

They moved slowly and carefully. There was no telling if the wyvern riders had dismounted and were moving to attack. Boaberous led the way on an unspoken order from Jataan P’Tal. They descended several levels until they came to one with a bridge leading to the tower containing the master Gate. Perched on the bridge was a wyvern with a woman sitting on its back. Boaberous peeked around the corner and stopped those behind him with a hand signal. Alexander slipped up beside the giant and sent his all around sight through the wall to assess the situation.

The woman was watching the doorway intently as if she expected them to try to pass. Alexander decided he wanted to send a message to the wyvern riders. He held the Sovereign Stone inside the doorway for a moment, dangling it by its heavy gold chain so she could see it glowing softly, and then he put it back around his neck and under his armor.

“I am Alexander Reishi, Seventh Sovereign of the Seven Isles,” he said loudly. “I command you to stand down and permit us to pass.”

There was silence for several long moments before she answered. “You lie, Phane. You are the only male Reishi left in the Seven Isles. You may have recovered the Stone, but you will never make it off this island alive.”

Alexander shook his head. He searched for some way to convince the wyvern riders that he was telling the truth but realized it was futile. They were going to believe what they wanted to believe—and they were blocking his path. He thought of the soldiers pouring into his homeland and his resolve hardened.

“We have to get past her. Lieutenant Wyatt, have your men nock arrows and be ready,” Alexander commanded. “Once she’s off the bridge, we’ll have to move fast.”

Alexander drew the Thinblade.

Jataan stepped up beside him. “What is your intention, Lord Reishi?”

“I’m going to drive her off the bridge or kill her.”

Jataan shook his head. “Such risk is unnecessary. Do you wish her dead or injured?”

Alexander thought about it for a moment. If she was left alive, she could report what he’d said and the fact that he had the Sovereign Stone. That might serve as leverage when he went to get Isabel and Abigail.

“Alive, but out of the way,” Alexander said.

Jataan nodded and held out his hand to Boaberous. The giant slipped a javelin out of his oversized quiver and handed it to Jataan without a word. Alexander’s new protector stood with his back to the wall just beside the door, then rolled into the open space of the doorway and hurled the javelin with terrifying force, then rolled to the far side of the door behind the cover of the wall. The entire attack took less time than the blink of an eye.

The rider screamed, and the sound of a wyvern beating its wings was accompanied by the swirl of air and dust from the downdraft. Jataan nodded to Boaberous, who darted out onto the bridge and ran with surprising speed to the far side. A javelin from high above missed him as he reached the cover of the far tower.

They moved across in a tight group, scanning the sky. Rangers loosed arrows at anything that moved in an effort to put the wyvern riders on the defensive. Jataan stayed close to Alexander, scanning for danger. A wyvern came in for a tail-strike but veered off sharply when three Rangers sent arrows into its path. The wyverns nearby roared and were answered by others farther away. It was frightening to hear the predawn calm shattered by the fury of so many of the beasts.

They moved up through the tower as quickly as they could and reached the level of the sky deck just as the sky started to lighten. The tower room was similar to the other. It had a wrap-around balcony, several smashed-out windows and two doors, one leading to the sky deck and another leading to the balcony.

“The Gate Room is five levels up. Have you scouted the levels above?” Alexander asked Jataan.

“No, Lord Reishi. Prince Phane said the Sovereign Stone would be on the sky deck, so we waited here.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Alexander saw a blast of magical energy like nothing he’d ever seen before; it came from below on the rangeland surrounding the Keep. It tore up through the tower where the demon was held in the magical circle, shattering part of the tower where the sky deck was attached. The entire Keep shuddered from the impact. A terrible cracking noise reverberated through the structure as the sky deck broke free of the other two towers and plummeted to the courtyard below.

Alexander raced to a window. A man mounted on a horse was on the Gate platform. The Gate went from an open portal to a solid wall as the man took aim at an approaching wyvern rider. Another terrible blast of inky black magic shot forth from his extended hand, streaking toward the wyvern as it tried to roll out of the way. The black magic hit like a stream of liquid, splattering on impact. Everywhere it touched, the wyvern simply transformed into a heavy black smoke that sank toward the ground. Within moments, the wyvern and rider were reduced to nothing but a jumble of parts amidst a swirl of dark and unnatural smoke.

“Phane,” Jataan P’Tal said.

Chapter 54

Alexander felt a thrill of fear. How could he hope to stand against such terrifying power? Phane was clearly beyond him. Before he could pull his mind back from the brink of fear, a Ranger cried out, pointing to the far tower—the one with the demon trapped inside.

The magic circle had been broken. The beast with the mouth and dozens of tentacles pulled itself out through the doorway. The bulbous ends of its tentacles stuck to the stone where they made contact, leaving smoldering indentations.

With one powerful thrust, it propelled itself away from the tower and sailed through the air toward Alexander. It hit the side of the tower far below and started climbing up the stone wall.

Alexander could see Phane riding toward the Keep, fending off the attacks of the wyvern riders with dark magic that sent chills of terror up his spine. All the while, the tentacle demon climbed toward him. The situation had quickly gone from bad to worse.

“To the Gate Room,” Alexander said, wheeling toward the staircase.

Boaberous took the lead with his big war hammer at the ready.

The next several levels were surprisingly intact, as if some ancient magic had preserved the contents against the effects of time. The first was a laboratory filled with all of the glassware, tools, and ingredients an alchemist might ever need. Alexander wished they could stop and explore, but there just wasn’t time. The next room was a library and study filled with shelves of ancient and arcane volumes. Alexander shook his head in frustration as they moved through the room and up the next staircase. The next two rooms were more libraries filled with ancient tomes, all intact.

Alexander made a note to himself that, given a chance, he would return with some wizards to retrieve the knowledge stored there. They moved up the staircase to the Gate Room. Boaberous tried the door, but it was locked. He hit it with his shoulder, but it didn’t budge.

Alexander slipped past the Rangers in the stairwell.

“Stand aside,” he said.

 When he placed his hand on the door, there was a faint shimmer in the colors of the ancient magical portal and it opened smoothly and silently. The room had no windows and only the staircases leading up and down for exits. On the far wall, opposite the staircases, was a large black slab of stone about thirty feet wide at the base and twenty feet tall at its arched top. Traced along the edge was a double line seven inches apart that marked the outline of the Gate. Between the two lines etched into the smooth black stone were countless ancient symbols, runes, and glyphs. In the center of the room was a pedestal facing the Gate.

Alexander motioned for everyone to enter the room, then closed the door and dropped the bar in place. He saw the shimmer of color across its surface and took that to mean that the room was once again sealed with a magical shield.

He went to the pedestal with Jack at his side and Jataan two steps behind and to his left. It was also made of black stone and stood three feet high. The surface was angled slightly so the edge closest to the Gate was higher than the edge nearest Alexander. Engraved in the surface was a map of the Seven Isles. A rectangle was etched into the stone just above the map. Below the map were two squares of equal size; the left bore the image of a sword and the right was struck through with an X.

The islands of Karth and Ruatha were glowing pale blue, while the islands of Zuhl and Fellenden were glowing pale yellow. Alexander stared at it for a moment, trying to process what he was seeing, then he touched the square with the X and all of the islands abruptly stopped glowing.

With a frown, he touched the outline of the Isle of Ruatha. The surface of the stone slab before him shimmered, and suddenly they were looking into the early dawn on the plains of Ruatha. There was a terrible battle taking place. Countless soldiers were marching away from the Gate as if they were part of a column that had just come through it.