Spell of the Crystal Chair (10 page)

I
t was a pitiful group of survivors who made their way back to the Lowami village. Almost half of their number had severe wounds. Volka pulled four of their dead on a quickly thrown together sled. By the time they arrived, all were totally exhausted except, of course, Volka, who never seemed to tire.

Mat looked up at the giant and grumbled, “I wish one time you’d get tired, Volka.”

“Volka never get tired,” the giant replied. He looked back toward the bodies of the slain on the sled he was pulling. “Too bad. Nice men.”

Tam tried to look on the bright side as usual. “It could have been worse. If those ice wraiths hadn’t been stopped, we’d
all
be dead. But here we are, mostly with just a few scratches.”

Mat held out his arm. His sleeve was ripped from elbow to wrist. “Look at that.” He pulled it back to reveal a deep wound.

“Come on, then,” Tam said hurriedly. “We’d better get you sewed up. I’ll do the job myself to make sure it’s done right.”

“I wouldn’t trust you to sew up my underwear!” Mat complained. Nevertheless, he was weak from loss of blood and soon was lying on a table while Tam cared for the wound.

“There,” Tam said. “You’ll be good as new.”

“No, I won’t! I’ll have a scar as long as I live!” Mat
tried to sit up but fell back dizzily. “Room’s going around,” he muttered.

“Lie there, brother,” Tam said. “I’ll get you some hot soup. Then you can sleep.”

The entire Long House was filled with the wounded. Josh watched the women, led by the chief’s wife, move quickly among them. Rimah was known as an expert with herbs, and she had brewed a strong mixture that brought relief to the pain of the wounded.

She stopped beside Wash, who had a gash across his right calf. “Drink this,” Rimah said. “You will soon feel better.”

Wash looked up with fatigue on his face. “Thank you, ma’am.” He took the cup of hot liquid and sipped it. “What is this?” he said.

“Something to take the pain away and make you sleep.”

“I don’t know if I want to sleep,” he muttered. “I’ll dream about those ice wraiths.”

But then he looked around at the long faces of the other Sleepers as they bound up each other’s wounds, and he said, “Hey, it was pretty bad, but we’ve had worse.”

“Worse! I don’t know when,” Dave said. He was bandaging Jake’s neck, which had been scraped by a Yanti ax. Peering at the wound closely, he said, “A little bit deeper, and that would have got you.”

“Well, a miss is good as a mile.” Jake tried to smile, but obviously he was still shaken over the experience. “It didn’t bother me,” he said slowly, “thinking about facing the Yanti. But when those ice wraiths came over that hill, I’m telling you it did something to me.”

Denhelm came by. His face was grave. “It was very
brave of you to charge in and shoot the riders from the ice wraiths. You saved the day with your courage.”

Josh knew that the chief was grieved to the heart over the loss of his daughter. He said quietly, “Sir, we’ve got to get Fairmina back. As soon as we can pull ourselves together, we’ll take her away from the Yanti.”

“Balog is no fool. By this time they will have figured out that the ice wraiths are no stronger than their riders. The next time we meet them, you can believe that the riders will be well armored. Balog is the son of one of the most noted warriors in history. The son is more impetuous and not as wise, but he has Magon for a counselor. No, we needn’t look for any mercy from them in the future. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised but that they return very soon.”

“How did they ever manage to get the ice wraiths tamed?” Jake murmured. “I thought they were untamable beasts.”

“I fear that it is the power of the Dark Lord at work. I have heard that he has power over animals, and he has granted some of his power to Zarkof.”

“Zarkof, the pale wizard,” Josh said thoughtfully.

“He is an evil man, and I fear that Balog and his people have fallen under his influence. A sad, grievous day for us.” Pain swept across his face, and his shoulders sagged. “We must give my daughter up for lost.”

“Do you think they’ll kill her?” Sarah whispered, her eyes large with fright.

“They are capable of it. Especially with Zarkof counseling them. I’ve heard he believes in human sacrifice. I don’t know that to be true,” he added hurriedly, “but in any case, they will never let Fairmina go. I expect them to use her as a hostage.”

At this, Chief Denhelm walked away.

“I feel so sorry for him,” Abbey said. “His only daughter in the hands of those awful people. I wish they were all dead.”

“Don’t say that,” Sarah said quickly. “I’m sure they’re not all evil.”

“They’re allied with the Dark Lord, aren’t they?”

“They’re blinded, and they need to be enlightened,” Sarah said. “We’ve seen it happen before. The Dark Lord has powers, but Goél can brush the shadows away from their minds. And Goél will help us know what to do.”

For the next few days, Denhelm kept a guard surrounding the camp. Everyone knew he expected a raid from the Yanti at any moment, and everyone knew that there was no defense from tamed ice wraiths. The whole camp was on alert, ready to flee at the first warning of the outpost guards.

On the third night, Denhelm called a meeting of the council. There were empty places at the table, which must have saddened him. Rimah came and stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders as he outlined the situation.

“We all know,” he said, “that we are in grave danger. We owe our lives now to three of the Sleepers. I apologize to them for having ever doubted their ability.” He smiled faintly through the pain that was in his heart. “I took them a little lightly, but Goél always knows how to send just the right aid.”

“I wish Goél himself would come,” Josh broke in. He had intended to say nothing, but the wish was heavy on his heart. “Cannot we send for him, Chief?”

“And where would you go to find him?”

Josh realized that there was truth in this. Goél did
not have a street address where one could go and knock on the door and find him at home. He was everywhere—and he was nowhere. Despair came over Josh then. “But we’ve got to do something about Fairmina.”

Talk ran around the table for some time, until finally Rimah spoke up. She had a gentle voice, but all the men immediately listened. Josh could tell that they had great respect for the wife of the chief.

“I am not one who has a great many dreams,” she said quietly. “I would leave that to the ancient ones and the priests who are among us. But for three nights in a row, I’ve had the same dream, and it comes to me that I should share it with you.”

“What sort of a dream was it, wife?” Denhelm asked quietly, his eyes fixed on her with alert interest.

“I hardly know how to describe it. It comes quickly and flashes before my mind, and then it is gone. It has to do with the Yanti. And I have seen Fairmina in the dream three times.”

“Is she safe?” Denhelm cried and then waited as if to receive a blow.

“In the dream I see her closely guarded but no harm has come to her. She seems not to be wounded, and she has kept her courage.”

“What else is in the dream?”

“There is a man. I have never seen him before, but I know that he is evil. He wears a black cloak with a hood, and around his neck there is a gold medallion. It has an emblem on it that I could not clearly see. All I know is that he is speaking constantly to Balog and the Yanti council. He seems to be enclosed with a cloud so that I could not see his face clearly.”

“That sounds like Zarkof,” one of the older council members said. “I have seen him twice. He always
wears that black cloak with a hood over his face, and he wears a gold emblem with a crooked lightning bolt on it—the sign of the Dark Lord.”

“Was there more to the dream?”

“I see—I see the Sleepers going through a passage to a dark cavern. A horrible creature is waiting. I can never see what it is, but I know it is most terrible.”

“Is that all?” Denhelm asked.

“Except for one thing more. Each time, Fairmina looks up and motions to me, and I hear her saying, ‘Come.’”

“Then the dream is clear,” Josh said. “We must go and rescue her.”

“But who must go?” Denhelm demanded.

“All of us!” Josh said.

“We cannot leave our women and children here unguarded,” Denhelm said quietly.

“Oh, I didn’t think about that.”

“And where would you go?” Denhelm asked.

“Why, to the Yanti camp.”

“And do you think they would open the door so that you could walk right in?” a man jeered. “They will have guards out, even as we do.”

“But we have to do something,” Sarah said. “We can’t leave Fairmina there.”

“Yes, we must do something,” the chief said. “I wish Goél were here, for I have no wisdom. If they have the ice wraiths mounted and under control, we are doomed sooner or later.”

“Why can’t we sneak up on ’em and surprise ’em?” Reb asked. His eyes glowed with excitement. “If we catch ’em off guard before they can mount those ice wraiths, we’ll have a chance.”

“Their tribe is larger than ours,” Denhelm said.
“And as for sneaking up on them, they have many good hunters. They are more apt to sneak up on
us
, I think, with their greater numbers.”

Silence fell over the room, and the chief bowed his head. He seemed to be thinking hard, and again Rimah put her hands on his shoulders. Reaching up, he held them under his own. Then he looked up with grief in his eyes. “We must wait until someone has word from Goél. Otherwise, we may throw our lives away.”

It seemed to Josh that waiting could lead to nothing but disaster. “If the ice wraiths come before we hear from Goél, we’ll all be lost,” he whispered to Reb.

“I think you’re right, but it’s Denhelm’s decision. He’s responsible for the whole tribe.”

“If it were me,” Jake whispered, “I’d go for it. I don’t want to go down with my bat on my shoulder. We could go down trying, anyway.”

But the will of Denhelm prevailed, and they waited.

Josh thought of the ice wraiths out there in the darkness somewhere. They might come at any time, and this knowledge did not make for good sleeping.

O
utwardly, Fairmina endured her captivity with courage and strength. Three days passed, and so far she had said not a word to her captors. Balog brought her before the council twice, but when they questioned her about her people and her father, she did not open her lips a single time. This had infuriated him, and he had said, “Let her have nothing to eat until she decides to talk!”

During the next twenty-four hours Fairmina was given all the water she wanted but no food.

She was kept in a stone house approximately ten feet square. There was no fire, but there was a cot with furs on it for covering. The only other furniture was a small table and a chair. She spent hours walking back and forth like a caged animal, aware that the guards were watching her through the grates built on each side of her small prison.

Once a day they took her out for exercise but kept a heavy rope tied around her neck. The end was held by one of her two guards. The other guard, Deur, kept an arrow notched in his bow, and she knew that at the least provocation he would be glad to send it through her.

This was the only time that she had any chance at all to escape. Her mind worked constantly. She thought of how she might jerk the guard off stride with the rope he held, then run to him and draw his sword and finish him off. But there was always the other guard, a small,
swarthy man with alert gray eyes. He watched her continually and from time to time would move his arrow back and forth as if yearning to send it into her heart.

“If I could just get rid of him for three minutes, I could overcome the other one. Then no one would catch me.”

But the Yanti had chosen their guards well. The small archer never took his eyes off her.

On the second day without food, she was taken out for exercise and the noose tightened around her neck. This was an indignity to Fairmina, but she endured it for the sake of getting outside the four prison walls.

When she stepped out today, she saw that the skies were clear. The sun was warming the earth. Tiny rivulets of melting snow had formed along the path through the trees. She walked toward the river, much aware of the presence of Deur. She had heard that he was the best archer of all the Yantis. She also knew that no matter how fast she was, an arrow was swifter.

Still, there was always a chance. She was sure that sooner or later someone would come for her. Still, an attempted rescue would be hopeless, for Balog had thrown out a triple ring of guards, expecting just such a move.

“Good morning.”

Fairmina turned with surprise to see Beorn, the son of Chief Balog. He had come up quietly. She was irritated with herself for not hearing him. She did not answer.

“Do you mind if I join you on your walk?”

Fairmina looked closely at the chief’s son. She had to admit he was a fair man indeed. Tall and strong with dark hair and eyes. “Do as you please,” she heard herself
saying. “I’m your prisoner. I could not prevent you.”