SpringFire (20 page)

Botellin, too, soared through the air. A moment later, we met in the center and our hands clasped, our fingers interlocked, black on white and white on black. A splash of joy welled from our souls and wrapped us in a sweet scent, sweet but not cloying, sweet in the manner of the new blossoms of Spring.

An hour or more later, I became aware that I lay sprawled on the ground. My muscles felt weary, as if pushed to do unaccustomed exercise. My soul felt refreshed and replenished. I sat up to find Botellin sitting up and leaning against one of the stones, his eyes closed and the light falling full onto his face. I cleared my throat, and he opened his eyes.

“Well,” he said in a bemused tone. “Interesting effect when we combine the magics, don’t you think?”

I smiled in agreement.

A few days later, Xyla declared that the time had come for us to return to Hedra.

I gasped aloud. “What? You mean just like that?”

It was afternoon and she lay outside the cave basking in the warm Spring sunshine, while Traz, Lini, and a few other sages practiced danse moves in the clearing before us.

“I am well enough,” she said. “Do you not wish to go back?”

“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just such a surprise.”

“Tomorrow,” she said with a tone of finality. “I have told Botellin.”

She must have told Grey, too, or perhaps Botellin sent word, for he and Shandry arrived in the late afternoon.

Botellin gathered us together after the evening meal.

“The time for partings has come,” he said. “Xyla says she is well enough to return, and I agree with her that it is not wise to tarry here longer. Now, Lini, are you sure you wish to do this thing?”

“Yes, I am sure. The good I can do here can also be done by others. The good I can do for this lad,” and she grinned at Traz with obvious affection, “must, I think, be done by me. Who else would want to leave behind the life they have here?”

Her gaze met Botellin’s and held for a long moment. He nodded and said, “Yes, I understand,” and his voice was colored with sympathy that made me curious. Traz, on the other hand, beamed.

“So everything is settled,” Botellin said. “Tomorrow we will go first to Delaron, then on to the Danse Tree, a place of mighty power. We will perform the ritual there to send you all home.”

After the meeting, I went outside to enjoy the last of the sunlight. Breyard came and stood beside me.

“I suppose,” he said, “it’s time to say goodbye.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. It’s strange.”

He put an arm around me. “It is. Strange to think that you’ll see me again before I see you. Remember, I’m proud of you.”

“You’re not too bad yourself,” I said with an embarrassed little laugh.

The flight to Delaron was exhilarating. We rose higher and higher into the air, and the peaks of the mountains ahead of us cut a sharp outline against the bright Spring sky. Then we were high enough to clear the pass, and the morning sun glared into our eyes. But I didn’t care. I shook my head and let my hair flow behind me, glad for the chance to fly openly and freely, as we could never do back home.

When we passed over the area I thought must be Rennirt’s lands, I forced myself to look down. He could do nothing to me now.

Then we were over the desert, quickly approaching the large blue gem that was Delaron Lake. Shiny specks in the sky resolved into more red dragons as we drew closer, and soon the air was full of them, above, below, and all around. The sight nearly took my breath away, and I had to wipe a tear from my eye.

The flight of dragons swooped in unison around the lake. A few peeled off with each circuit we made, landing on the wide beach of white sand on the side opposite where the town sprawled, and where a large group of red-cloaked sages had already gathered. On the last lap, only Xlya and Kelben were left, flying wingtip to wingtip.

When we finally landed, the beach was more red than white, what with the dragons and the sages. I slid off Xyla’s back and looked around for the others. It was hard to spot them in the crowd.

I found Grey and Shandry near the edge of the group. He had an arm around her shoulders and was wiping tears from her cheeks. Feeling a little guilty that I didn’t have much sympathy for her, I turned my gaze away.

Traz stood talking with Lini. His face suddenly lit up, and he began gesticulating wildly. I expected him to break out dancing any moment.

But when I caught sight of Breyard, my jaw fell open in surprise. He stood chatting with several sages and holding hands with Jinna. I closed my eyes, gave my head a little shake, then looked again. It wasn’t a trick of the light, they were definitely holding hands. Ah, I thought, if only I weren’t getting ready to leave. How fun it would be to tease him. But there wasn’t any time left for that now.

I wiped away the sweat that had accumulated on my brow. My clothes were far too warm for a Spring morning in the desert, but there was no point in changing them. Soon I would be home and it would be Winter again.

Botellin looked up at Kelben, who let out a loud trumpet, making both people and dragons jump in surprise. All the sages moved forward to stand in a large group. Despite their cloaks being made of thillin, I wondered how they could stand the heat.

My attention wavered as thirst overcame me. My tongue felt as if it were swelling. Botellin began speaking, but I didn’t listen to a word he said. My face grew warm, as if I had a fever, and all I could think of was drinking cool, refreshing water. I wiped my forehead again.

I began to sidle away. Surely it wouldn’t hurt for me to slip over to the water and get a drink. I would only be gone for a moment. Under the hot sun, my face grew warmer.

No one, not even the dragons noticed I was moving; their attention was all focused on Botellin. His words were nothing more now than a dull rumbling in my ears. I kept moving.

At the waterside, I considered taking off my boots so I could wade a short way into the lake. But no, that would just take time, and my thirst had grown almost beyond bearing. I crouched down and scooped up a double handful of glorious, wet water.

Before I could get it to my mouth, though, a shadow fell over me. Starting in guilty surprise, I dropped the water.

“I just needed—” I started to say when something sharp pricked the side of my neck.

“Not another sound if you please. Keeping your movements invisible from the others is taxing enough without having to muffle your noise, too.”

Rennirt!

Karilla sat, still and silent, in the cool of the morning, eyes closed and spirit attuned to the power of the earth. Its resonance beat in time with her heart, its rhythm stirred her soul.

She knew not that she rose up, her feet spinning out the fullness of her communion with the cosmos, her body moving in time with the heartbeat of the earth.

As she swirled and twirled and leapt and spun, power unknown came to her, filling her, stirring her soul, bringing her unity with the spirit of the world.

And when she rested, she reflected on this new thing, this new source of power with which one could do great good … or great evil. She chose the good.

Thus she was the first in all of that world to danse.

~from the teachings of Gedden, lore master

“Do not speak,” Rennirt’s silky voice continued, “and do not call the dragons, or I shall slit your throat.”

I gave the tiniest of nods, little more, really than raising my eyebrows.

“Stand up.” I did as he instructed. One hand gripped my shoulder while the other held the knife in place. “Move.”

The hand on my shoulder guided me to the left. I followed the water’s edge for a quarter of an hour, not letting my mind even think lest it call Xyla or the other dragons to me. I wouldn’t get any satisfaction from Rennirt’s death if he killed me first—which he no doubt would.

Finally, we reached a formation of tall boulders that created a small cove with a deep, secluded beach where three very fine horses stood saddled and stamping their feet, their reins held by a guard.

Rennirt kept the knife in place. I wondered whether it was blood or sweat that trickled down my neck and into my tunic.

“Tie her hands,” he instructed the guard.

With a smile of pleasure that disgusted me, the guard—a strong, lithe man whom I might have considered handsome in other circumstances—bound my wrists together.

“Put this in her mouth, and make sure she doesn’t spit it out.”

The guard took what Rennirt handed him, and this time I saw that it was a polished black stone the size of a small egg. The guard pried my mouth open and slid the stone in, then, as Rennirt had done before, tied a long strip of cloth around my mouth. And also as before, I felt my maejic freeze within me. There was no chance now of calling the dragons.

“Now we must ride,” Rennirt said, finally taking his knife from my throat.

The two of them set me on one of the horses, tying my wrists to the pommel, adjusting the stirrups, and tying my feet to them. There would be no falling off this horse.

They mounted up. The guard took my horse’s reins while Rennirt hummed a long solitary note and made a series of complicated movements with his arms.

“It would work better,” he said, “if we weren’t racing the wind, but it should do well enough in a pinch. Ride out.”

“Yes, sir.”

The guard went first, leading me, while Rennirt brought up the rear. To our left, maybe half a mile away, I could see the dragons still gathered. No one appeared to miss me yet.

Once clear of the large boulders, we galloped. I’d never ridden a beast so fine, and even with my hands able only to grip the pommel, it wasn’t hard to keep my balance. At this speed, in this heat, the horses would be spent quickly; we must not be going far.

Although the desert floor had looked completely flat from the air, I now saw that it was indeed textured, with dips and rises, and with a considerable amount of plant life that managed to eke out some sort of existence. Most of the plants—spiky cacti and other such things—grew close to the ground. But there were occasional short trees of a kind I didn’t know. Everything growing had a greyish cast to it.

Now that there was nothing to do but keep my seat, I began to take notice of how uncomfortable I was in my heavy clothes. Hot and thirsty. Yet not as thirsty as I’d been before. With a sickening lurch in my stomach, I realized what had happened: Rennirt had gotten inside my head without my detecting it and had enchanted me into doing exactly what he wanted.

The quality of the air began to change. It didn’t get either warmer or cooler; it was more a sense of power growing, drawing us in with thickening tendrils.

The guard slowed the horses, and now Rennirt went first. Ahead was a wide flat expanse in which stood the remaining stump of a tree. It was at least three feet in diameter, not huge as far as trees went, but much bigger than the other spindly trees I’d seen scattered here and there across the desert floor. The edges of the stump were fuzzy, as if blurred by the magic that swirled around it. My maejic might be frozen inside me, but that didn’t stop me from feeling the power.

We came to a stop near the long-dead tree. Rennirt dismounted and tossed his reins to the guard.

He approached the stump slowly, his blue cloak billowing out, and held his arms straight out ahead of him, palms facing the tree and fingers outstretched. He stopped before actually touching it. His breathing changed, growing deep and loud.

I sat motionless, sweating and wishing for a breeze to dry the sweat that dripped into my eyes.

After a few minutes, Rennirt turned to face me, his emerald eyes gleaming even in the bright sunshine. He had a satiated expression on his face, as if he’d just eaten a large meal, yet his eyes still held a greedy light as he looked at me.

“You have caused me no end of trouble, and I will now solve this problem that is you. Permanently.” He nodded to the guard, who dismounted, untied my hands and feet from the saddle, and dragged me off the horse, throwing me to the ground. I put out my hands, still tied together, to break my fall, but all that did was cause all my weight to land on them. My left wrist crunched, and a searing pain shot up my arm and straight into my brain. At the same moment, my chin struck the ground, and blood filled my mouth as my tongue was caught between my teeth and the stone.

I lay there, eyes tight shut, trying to catch my breath and clear my mind of the pain that pulsed through me.

Strong hands picked me up, and the movement sent waves of agony through me. A moment later, Rennirt pressed my back to the stump. Direct contact with it sucked me into the vortex of its magic.

The ground shifted beneath my feet, and I fell upward. I sped through a purple sky, with lights of every color flashing around me.

A voice, ancient and deeply rooted as the hills, spoke.

“Why do you disturb my rest?” The words shook my very soul.

“Please, who are you?” I asked, my voice weak and unsteady.

“I am Etos, Master of the Danse. But I perceive that you are not here of your own volition.”

I was no longer speeding across the sky but instead I floated, slowly spinning in place, trying to fight off dizziness and the tightening pain that coursed through my body.

“No,” I gasped.

“Then I shall refrain from slaying you. For now.”

Sobs wracked my body and filled my mind with red haze. It was hard to breathe.

“But,” and the voice took on a bemused tone, “you are not from this world.”

Terror tore through me. Was this Etos really Rennirt, probing my mind again, and me helpless to stop him?

While I tried to bring order to my chaotic thoughts, Etos spoke on. He told of the mystical origins of the danse, of his burgeoning power that grew in strength and subtlety through the long ages, and of his ultimate assimilation into the fabric of the universe.

Surely it must be a fascinating story, but my mind was able to grasp hold of only small snippets.

Something warm trickled down my neck, and with a jolt I found myself back where I’d started.

During the time my mind had drifted in the ether with Etos, my captors had bound me tightly to the stump. My left wrist throbbed in time with my racing heartbeat.

Rennirt stood before me now, holding a crescent-shaped basin and a dagger, both made of silver. The point of the dagger was red with what I knew was with my blood. He reached for me with an elegant hand. I turned my face away, but that didn’t stop him getting what he wanted. He stroked my neck, sending a shudder through my frame. When his hand came away, more of my blood coated his forefinger. This he licked off slowly, savoring the flavor with obvious relish.

Then he held the basin to my neck.

“I will have your power,” he said. “I should not have bothered trying to keep you alive the first time. This way will be more efficient. And fortunately for you, bleeding to death is not painful. Just time-consuming with a cut this small.”

He dipped his finger into the basin and licked up more of my blood.

“Ah, yes. Yes.” He took a deep breath and let out a satisfied sigh. “You do know, do you not, that power, like life, is in the blood?” Now he reached toward my face, and his hand stroked my left cheek. I steeled myself for this new pain, but it didn’t come. “It
is
too bad, though, that this bit of art shall meet a premature demise.”

Something flashed in the sky in the middle distance. It must be a bird, though why a bird would be in this forsaken land I couldn’t guess.

I closed my eyes, trying to ignore Rennirt’s continuing caresses.

“Your blood is rich,” he whispered. “Just a taste of it fills me with power. When I have bled you dry and drunk my fill, no one will ever be able to stop me.”

A shadow passed overhead. Even with closed eyes, I could feel it.

Rennirt let out a gasp and moved away from me. I opened my eyes to find a dragon landing twenty paces away. Kelben! With Botellin astride!

The sage was on the ground a scarce second later.

Rennirt set the basin down at my feet, then stood to face Botellin. He seemed to swell with power—my power.

Botellin lifted a hand and shouted, “Hold, Rennirt!”

In a low, menacing voice, my captor said, “That is ‘Lord Rennirt’ to you, and I have had more than enough of your impertinence.”

He, too, lifted a hand, and Botellin flew backward, stopped from crashing to the ground only by his collision with Kelben. My hope died. If the sage didn’t have the strength to stand up to Rennirt, no one did.

Rennirt stepped back to my side, the silver dagger back in his hand and held to my throat.

“Stand back, or the girl dies.”

Botellin stood in place, breathing heavily. “I would rather not kill you, Rennirt,” he said, though his words sounded weak and hopeless.

Rennirt laughed. “Amusing. Very amusing. Perhaps I shall keep you as my jester. Would you like that? Living the rest of your life captive to my whim?” He laughed. “Accept the inevitable, Botellin. The time of the sages has come to an end. With this one’s power, I shall rule you all. And your power shall be mine.”

Botellin bowed his head, and my heart sank. Then the sound of animals squabbling came from somewhere behind me. Rennirt started, then looked to see what it might be. In that moment of inattention, Kelben leapt, a second later snatching Rennirt from my side, the tip of his tail slashing across my waist as he swept past.

Botellin raced to me. Picking up the dagger that had fallen to the ground, he cut the cords that bound me. I slid to a sitting position, cradling my left wrist against my chest.

He slit the fabric that gagged me, and when he’d unwound it, I spit the stone onto the sand. As my maejic bloomed with full force within me, Botellin held the cloth to the cut on my neck.

Then I began to weep in earnest. The sage wrapped his free arm around me and held me tight to his side.

“My child,” he said in a quiet, soothing voice. “My poor, poor child.”

Other dragons began to arrive now, and the sages they brought gathered around.

All of a sudden, my left cheek flamed for a second, and then the pain was gone. A moment later, Kelben spoke.

“Rennirt is dead.”

Relief flooded through me.

I wiped the tears from my cheek with my good hand. “I’m all right,” I said in a soft voice, aware that the sages were all staring at me.

Botellin dabbed at my neck. “This seems to have stopped bleeding. Luckily, it’s not a large cut. I only hope you didn’t lose too much blood.” He reached for the polished stone. “What is—argh!” He dropped it quickly, as if it had burned him.