The Destroyer Book 2 (18 page)

"Documents that no one has seen but you," Maerc argued back.

"They are fragile and could not be moved or they would disintegrate."

"Where are they stored now?" the general asked earnestly.

"In my father's keep. In my study. I still don't see why this is so important to you."

"It is important because I don't believe you," the general said flatly.

"Fuck you, Maerc. I don't have to explain myself to you. I'm leaving. Where is my tent?" Anger grabbed hold of my brain and forced the words out like a waterfall. I struggled to my feet and tossed my bowl aside. I had finished all of my soup so it didn't make much of a mess on the rug.

"Sit down, girl!" Maerc shouted as he slammed his fist on the table and stood again. I smirked back at him and crossed my arms. I could argue with Greykin all day long. Runir's father was half of the old warrior's size and a quarter as intimidating.

It took all of my focus and strength, but I managed to take a step closer to him without limping or wincing in pain. I drew myself up as straight and tall as my leg would allow and glared at him.

“
I
am the commander of this army, by law and by blood.
You
do not give me orders.
You
do not call me ‘girl,’” I seethed the words.

"This is why I suspect you, Duchess." The general reached into a pocket and withdrew a folded piece of yellowed paper with the purple royal seal on its opening. I held my breath and counted to ten, it allowed my swimming vision to right itself. "I wanted you to come clean, but I should have suspected you would just lie. You've been lying your whole life, haven't you?"

"I don't know what you are hinting." I couldn't bluff this. The letter was probably from the king, and he knew everything. I looked over my shoulder at the flap of the tent and saw the shadows of guards posted at the exit. There was no way to escape past them with my injured leg. I wondered if I would have been better off with an interrogation by the empress.

"Maybe I should read this letter to you," Maerc opened it carefully and cleared his throat. "You'll want to sit back down for this, Nadea." He eyed me over the rim of the paper. Runir shuffled again and I glanced over at him. His face contorted in agony and I guessed he must have known what the letter said.

"You need not read it," I said as I sat down, my body shivered like it did when the temperature suddenly changes. "I can guess what is written there. It is from the king, correct?" Maerc nodded his head. "How did you get it?"

"He gave it to me a few days before the siege started and made me swear never to open it unless he died. I believed it would be instructions for protecting his family, the kingdom, or maybe knowledge of a weapon that the ancient castle might hold. I never thought it would be about you."

The blonde man finished speaking and I sat in silence for a few minutes. My father and I almost never spoke of my secrets. I understood why the king might want Maerc to know; I wished it hadn't come to this.

I wished I did not have to tell anyone.

"Why don't I begin by reading his letter and then you can comment on it." The general cleared his throat and began. I was sure that Runir already read it, so Maerc probably wanted to recite it to destroy any ambiguity I could use as a defense with his son.

The coldness of fear gripped my stomach as soon as the first words of the king's letter left his mouth and my secrets were laid bare before both of them.

"What brings you here, human?" the old Elven's voice sounded like paper being slowly torn.

"I am seeking someone, one of your kind," I said. My hand strayed down to my belt to rest upon the hilt of my mace, but it had been countless years since I wore the weapon and my palm met with empty air.

"If you have come here to kill me then be done with it." The Elven resembled a gnarled gray tree, the kind that grew out of hardened cliff sides and didn't realize that they were dead, even after the wind has twisted and ripped all their leaves away.

"No, Old One. I mean you no harm, and I apologize if my movement may have convinced you otherwise." I looked down at my hand, slightly ashamed that it seemed to have a mind of its own. The venerable Elven grunted and turned back to his task. We stood in an ancient temple, buried hundreds, maybe thousands of feet under the earth. I followed her trail down here and it had been three days since I felt the sun or wind on my face.

The man shuffled away from me and slowly brushed off the top of a long stone platform. It almost looked like it could serve as a bed. Perhaps his robes were once blue, but they had faded to a gray that matched his hair, skin, and eyes. He reminded me of a statue, both in appearance and in his slow, jerky movement.

"I am seeking someone, one of your kind. I believe that she has come this way." I repeated. He seemed to remember me again and then the decrepit Elven turned around with suspicion.

"What is your business here?" he said again. I sighed. How old was this husk? I had never seen an aged Elven, but this man looked like he may have sired the rocks that built this temple.

"Has anyone passed here recently? A woman with copper-colored hair?" His eyes lit up for a second. He had seen her; even this befuddled golem couldn't forget her beauty.

"Yes. She passed this way, two months ago, I think, but it is hard to tell time. It may have been years." I nodded. It wasn't years ago. I spied her in the distance almost three weeks ago as she crossed one of the mountain passes twenty miles from me. I thought I had been gaining ground, but then I lost her when I missed the descending path she took to this place.

"Did she say where she was going next?" I jarred him out of whatever reverie he was experiencing and wondered how long it had been since he conversed with someone living besides me.

"She used the Radicle," he said plainly. I waited for him to give an explanation, but his tone seemed to infer that I should understand the word he spoke.

"What is the Radicle?" I asked. He was the first person I had talked to in the last half of a year, but I wanted to finish the conversation so I could continue with my pursuit. He smiled at me and closed his eyes.

"How the knowledge has been lost. Even amongst our masters, time destroys all. Will you sing one of our songs of the world with me Human?" His voice began to rumble softly and alter in pitch every few seconds. I wanted to snap the old man's body into three pieces, but I wouldn't get what I wanted from that course of action. Besides, I wanted to be done murdering Elvens.

"No. I won't sing with you. Answer my question." I tried not to let anger infiltrate my voice. He obviously didn't care if I killed him.

His baritone voice grew louder and erupted into a song. It did sound beautiful, and although it lacked words, his voice reminded me of tree leaves blowing in the wind. His face seemed to lose much of the age by the time he finished. He smiled at me and took a huge breath before he addressed me again.

"The Radicle is how we got here, human." He looked down to his task and continued to polish off the top of the stone table. Yellow and green light bounced off the strange metallic walls and illuminated the massive dome. This temple contained dozens of them, filled with too many stone tables to count.

This was the fourth temple I had followed Iolarathe to, and although I didn't understand why she visited these places, this was the first one where I had found a living Elven. I wasn't about to give up on my inquiries so easily.

"How Elvens got here? What do you mean?" I demanded. She must have been seeking this Radicle object.

"You ask the same questions the woman asked. It saddens me to know that our ways have been forgotten. Why haven't you remembered human? I see the power of the world is strong in you. My teachers wondered if this day would come, when one like you would forget how to use the Radicle." He shook his head slowly in disapproval.

"What did you tell the woman? Can you explain what the Radicle does?" I folded my arms across my chest and sat down on the cold stone bench. This place smelled of earth, mold, water, and moss. I felt my anxiety build in stark contrast to this ancient place.

"The Radicle helps us grow new worlds. It is the vessel of expansion for the masters." He smiled slightly and bobbed his head like an owl. He noticed that I didn't seem to understand so he continued. "We use the Earth to move our bodies and spirits between them."

"How does it work?" The hair on the back of my neck stood as his words struck a chord in me.

"She also asked me that. I will show you." He pointed down a long corridor behind him. I nodded and he slowly moved toward it, dragging his robe and body like a snake that was about to freeze to death. This temple lay under a massive rainforest. Roots of the canopy pushed into the structure, past the green-gray stone of its walls, and dangled from the ceiling like the fingertips of a hand about to capture us.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose farther and I couldn't shake the feeling of uneasiness. It had been six or seven months since I visited the village of the beautiful blue-haired Elven woman that claimed to be Iolarathe's friend. She had given me directions to chase after my lover. Had I covered my trail enough? Did I leave too many clues? I was chasing Iolarathe as they were hunting me.

"Here is where the seeding is controlled," the old man said as he walked into a smaller, circular room. In its center stood a pedestal, encircled by a stone table similar to the benches in the other rooms. On the pedestal sat a globe with fine etches on it. Networks of vines, knotted branches, and roots played across its surface from the ambient light of the room.

"This seeding has access to forty-six other worlds that will sustain life. It has seeded only seventeen of them."

"Worlds?"

"Spheres that circle different suns. Set at the right distance to have correct temperatures and satellites to support oceans." I remembered Entas telling me similar tales many, many years ago. Did the old man know of these devices the Elvens possessed?

"You can create a world using this chamber?" My mind spun impossibly fast. I never imagined such a feat was possible.

"No. This transports our people and the masters to the various worlds that can support life." His voice began to show some semblance of passion and emotion.

"Did the woman use this?" I remembered the current purpose of my life. She had always been my focus.

"No. She wanted to, but this Ovule only contained enough power to send one person. She sent her companion and told me she would come back when she obtained another Ovule." He pointed at the small metallic sphere that sat atop the pedestal.

"She had someone with her?" I hadn't recalled seeing anyone else when I spotted Iolarathe climbing the mountain range.

"Yes. But when she found out that this Ovule would only send one, they argued for many hours. The Elven woman with the coppery hair you are asking about sent the human across the void to seed world four eight seven seven six three nine." He moved to the Ovule and placed his hand upon it as he spoke. Suddenly the room darkened and a golden network of bright lines descended on the walls and ceiling around the room.

"It is there," he whispered, and one of the marks on the wall started to glow as it formed a dot.

"Who made this place? Your masters? Who are they? I didn't think Elven had any masters." I stared with wonder at the etchings along the wall. It almost looked like a network of spider webs, yet more organic and asymmetrical. Was each twist a new world? Were humans on them? Elvens?

The old man laughed softly and took his hand off of the globe. The golden lines that glowed suddenly faded and the ambient light in the room became brighter.

"You are our masters. Humans that wielded the power of the Creation have ruled our kind for millennia. I do not mean to mock you, I just find it unusual that you do not seem to know these things. How could this be? I ask myself, but realize that you will not remember how your kind lost the knowledge." He smiled at me again.

"Your masters built this temple? They created the Ovule and the Radicle?"

"I do not know. The magic might even be older than them. But perhaps they were the creators. I was tasked with tending to the Radicle and helping those who have made the journey or wish to make one." I nodded to his reply.

"How does the Radicle work? Why can the Ovule only send a single person?"

"I will answer your last question first. The Ovule only has enough energy to send or receive a certain amount of life force."

"Can it be recharged? How do you gauge how much energy it has to send?" I could tell that I asked the questions too quickly. His old mind was almost gone and he struggled to keep up with my queries.

"I do not know how to recharge it, Master. Once you use it, the Ovule will inform you of how many life forces it can send through the Radicle."

"Answer my earlier question, how does it work?" I smiled at him and tried to appear friendly. I had started to believe that I had overcome my hatred of their race, but as I spent more time here, I began to despise his scent, voice, mannerisms, and his haughty attitude. I wanted his answers more than I wanted to murder him, so I kept my disgust in check. I didn't want to kill anymore. I only wanted Iolarathe.