The D'Karon Apprentice (57 page)

“You are trying to get me to lower my
guard.”

“I am, but if you saw what I see, you
wouldn’t be arguing. I’m doing this
for
you, not
to
you. It is a peace offering. And she seems quite interested in
speaking to you… though she keeps calling
you
Myn, rather
than your dragon, so I suppose she may be confused.”

“She… she called me Myn…” Myranda uttered,
her voice distant.

Almost against her will, Myranda let her
tightly focused mind shift from blocking out the circling spirits
to letting them show themselves in her mind’s eye. Instantly a
brilliant column of shifting, vaguely human forms flickered into
being around her. She could hear them screaming and see their eyes
wide and wild. It was a terrifying sight, but one that faded from
Myranda’s mind almost instantly. Something infinitely more
important had taken form before her.

It was the ghostly form of a woman perhaps an
inch shorter than Myranda. She looked to be a few years Myranda’s
senior, and the resemblance between them was pronounced. She was
dressed in thick layers, some warm woolen leggings topped with a
winter skirt, a jacket, and a gray cloak. Her outfit was neat and
professional, the traditional garb of a Kenvardian educator. Though
her insubstantial body was muted in its colors, the vivid red shade
of her hair was unmistakable.

Myranda covered her mouth, and her vision
blurred. “Mother…” she said, tears as present in her voice as her
eyes.

“My dear, sweet Myn,” said the spirit before
her in a voice straight from Myranda’s memories.

It was more than she could bear. The tears
flowed freely down her face and the breath caught in her chest. Any
doubt or suspicion fell away. There could be no deception in this.
This was Lucia Celeste, looking precisely as she had the last time
Myranda had seen her… the morning of the massacre.

Lucia stepped forward, her hand reaching out
in an attempt to brush away the tears. Myranda felt the touch as a
distant chill against her skin.

“Mother, I didn’t… I didn’t know… If I’d
known I could have contacted you…”

“Don’t… don’t, child. Look at you. Look at
the woman you’ve become. I’m so proud of you.”

“Why are you still here? Why haven’t you
moved on?”

“I don’t have the answers. I wish I did.
Perhaps I knew that someday you would return, that we would have
this moment. Perhaps I knew that our fallen city would see life and
freedom again at your hands.”

“Mother, I… Turiel…”

“I understand. She needs to be stopped,”
Lucia said.

“Please! Have your moment. I am in no hurry.
Mott still hasn’t returned, and I would very much like to introduce
the two of you before things are forced to become unpleasant,”
Turiel assured her. There was nothing mocking in her tone. She
seemed genuinely pleased to have facilitated this reunion.

“I don’t know how much longer we have,”
Myranda said.

“You look so tired, Myn,” Lucia said, again
trying to cradle Myranda’s cheek.

Myranda smiled through the tears. “No one has
called me that in years. No one since you. That’s her name now.”
She glanced to her companion.

The dragon was looking down at her, vague
confusion in her expression. The sharp shift in tone seemed to have
thrown her. Without any mystic training, she was only weakly aware
of Lucia’s presence.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve been watching. It
has been a joy to see you and your father working together.
Myranda… I want you to tell him that I don’t blame him for what
happened. And tell him to remember that he is still your father,
and you are still his daughter. Never forget that you will always
need each other.”

“I’ll remember. I’ll always remember,”
Myranda said.

“Oh…” Turiel cooed. “Don’t hold back! Hug
her.”

Myranda and Lucia looked at the sorceress,
each with distrust in their eyes.

“Please!” She clicked the tip of her staff to
the ground. “It is my gift to you.”

A considerable dose of mystic power flowed
into the air, swirling free. The magic was dark, almost black in
color, but as it wafted through the air, it lightened, slipping
entirely from Turiel’s influence and taking on the same faded
cold-blue glow of Lucia’s form. It gathered around her, feeding her
strength until there was the semblance of substance.

Myranda could feel that the power was no
longer the necromancer’s, that she’d legitimately offered it freely
to strengthen Lucia’s spirit. She did not pause to consider the
riddle of this woman’s behavior. She stepped forward and threw her
arms around her mother, and felt her mother’s arms in return.

She was not greeted by the warmth of a true
embrace. What she found instead was something less, and yet
something more. It was distant, but real, like a memory of a hug
from her childhood somehow drawn into the present.

“I miss you so much…” Myranda whispered.

“I’ll never be far away,” Lucia murmured in
return.

“It is a true mystery to me why so many view
necromancers to be evil,” Turiel mused, sincere tears in her eyes
as she watched the reunion. “Who but we could bring an opportunity
such as this to life?”

The tenderness of the moment was finally
brought to an end by the clatter of falling stone. A form pushed
itself through the churning column of swirling spirits. It was
Mott, or more accurately what Mott had become once Turiel had begun
to gorge upon the strength of the spirits she had summoned. He
looked much as he had before, a jackal head fading into a coiling
serpent body with spidery legs and massive wings. The scale,
however, was entirely different. Mott was a match for Myn’s height
now, his muscular serpentine neck as thick and heavily armored as
hers. The wings seemed to have been crafted, dragon-like in
structure and scale, but inky black and glossy like nothing from
nature. As a whole, he almost looked to have been coaxed to this
new size specifically to be a match for Myn.

“Ah! Mott. As you see, we have guests,”
Turiel said. “Myranda, Myn, Lucia, I present to you my dear Motley.
I made him myself. Though I tried to build him into something
fearsome using the knowledge and materials I was able to glean and
salvage from the D’Karon, I simply lacked the depth of knowledge to
remake him properly. Fortunately I still remember a bit of what I
learned from my dear sister. With the proper power and a bit of
knowledge, one can sculpt flesh into the shapes one needs. Mott,
tell me, did you do as I asked?”

A baritone chitter rolled from his eager
jaw.

“Good, good. Always good to plant a few extra
seeds, just in case this season’s harvest falls flat. And… oh… I
believe the pleasantries are about to end. One of your allies with
whom I’ve had the misfortune of clashing in the past seems to be
drawing near.”

The wind was indeed kicking up, and doing so
in a way that was far more directed and willful than a simple gust
or storm. Ether was coming, in one form or another.

“Turiel, please,” Myranda said. “You don’t
need to do this. I assure you, anything you need, anything you wish
to do, if it is within my power I will help you. Release the city
and end this quest to bring back the D’Karon.”

“But it is
not
within your power. It
was not within the power of the finest mystic our world has ever
known, and for that reason the only recourse is to reach out to
minds greater than ours, and those are the D’Karon. My sister fell
to the beast of the cave, and with the knowledge and training of
the D’Karon, the beast of the cave will fall to me!”

“Turiel, there
is
no beast of the
cave.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’ll get nowhere
with lies, Myranda.”

“It is the truth. I’ve crossed through the
cave twice. Those who enter are killed by the cave itself or make
their way to a place called Entwell.”

“You would have me believe that you could do
something my sister could not?”

“It isn’t always a matter of skill. Unless
you know the dangers and can prepare, luck is even more important.
Just tell me your sister’s name. She may have made it through, and
if you are still alive, she may still be alive in Entwell.”

The wind was growing more powerful. Turiel
had to raise her voice to be heard.

“If my sister was still alive, I would have
felt her presence.”

“The mountains around Entwell prevent all but
the simplest spells from passing through them. It is what has kept
the place so well hidden.”

Turiel remained silent for a moment. “That is
all terribly convenient, Myranda.”

“What have you got to lose by letting me help
you? What have you got to lose by seeing if there is any truth to
what I say?” Myranda called, the wind howling.

“I could lose it all, Myranda. And too much
has been done in the name of this cause to squander it on the word
of someone who would do anything to stop me.”

“Will you at least tell me how long ago it
happened? When did your sister die?”

“It was in the twentieth year of Queen Marrow
the fierce. Her triumph over the beast was to be her gift to the
queen on the anniversary of her coronation. That much I can never
forget. Bid your mother farewell, Myranda. I shall be taking back
the strength I have lent her.”

Lucia turned, the ghostly glow of her body
beginning to grow sharper.

“Myn, my dear child,” Lucia said, reaching
out and touching Myranda’s cheeks. “Take it, and use it well… I’ll
be with you always.”

She stood on her tiptoes and gave Myranda a
gentle kiss on her forehead. From the point where her lips pressed
to Myranda’s skin, the young wizard felt an intense warmth that
seemed to wash through her, revitalizing her. By the time she
realized that somehow her mother was making a gift of the borrowed
power, it was too late to say or do anything but accept the
strength she’d been given.

The image of her mother faded before her
until it was simply one of a thousand points of light thrown about
by the mystic torrent swirling around them. A few final tears ran
down Myranda’s cheeks and she held out her hand, but the brief
respite was over. Her purpose was calling once again.

“Now really, giving up my generously offered
power to your daughter? That is genuinely rude,” Turiel
remarked.

With the fresh magic pulsing through her,
Myranda felt almost like herself again. A few days of rest or even
a few hours of meditation would have done far more good, but as a
gift, it was a godsend. Even after dosing out enough of it to
restore Myn to some semblance of fighting shape, Myranda had enough
focus and energy in reserve to defend herself and her home… though
knowing that the merest fraction of Turiel’s power was enough to
restore her to this degree was concerning. The woman must be
swimming
in power…

#

The source of the wind, which had now been
joined by the first stinging flakes of a fresh snowfall, finally
arrived. Myranda had been expecting Ether’s windy form, but instead
the shapeshifter had assumed a form they’d seen her take only a
handful of times. She was a griffin, her front half with the
features of an eagle and her rear half with the features of a lion.
Her feathers and fur were both slate gray, and two figures were
tightly clutching her back. From the looks of it, the form she’d
selected was barely large enough to support their combined weight.
Perhaps it was for that reason that the wind had been raging along
with her, to aide her in lifting them and speed their journey.

She circled around and came down above
Myranda, bringing herself to a swift and graceful landing. Ivy and
Greydon Celeste shakily tumbled down from her back. The very
instant she was no longer supporting them, Ether shifted to flame
and launched herself at Turiel.

The dark sorceress raised her staff and
stood, sending what at first seemed to be a black cloud from the
head of her staff to swirl about Ether’s fiery form. As it grew
closer to her blazing glow, slivers of the light slipped through,
and it became clear that the attack was simply the densest, most
agile cluster of black filaments Turiel had yet summoned.

Ether moved like lightning, flitting this way
and that in her attempts to reach Turiel, but every tongue of flame
was scattered and broken by the thrashing of the threads, and every
momentary pause was punished by a dozen of them lancing through
her.

“Mott, dear, if the dragon does anything
unpleasant, you see to her. I’ll handle the elemental,” Turiel
said, the merest flutter of effort in her tone.

“Myn, stand guard and be ready to protect the
city,” Myranda crisply ordered. “Don’t fight unless you have to. I
don’t want this clash to threaten any of the people. Kenvard has
seen enough bloodshed for a hundred lifetimes.”

“Myranda!” Ivy said, running up to her and
throwing her arms around her. “I’m so glad to see you. Please! Give
me something to do! Every decision I make on my own seems to go
terribly wrong.”

“How are you? Are you strong? Rested?”
Myranda asked.

“I’m not hurt, but I can barely think
straight,” Ivy said, stepping aside and looking upon the manic
clash going on. “How did Mott get so
big
?”

“We’ve been traveling for two straight days.
Barely a nibble of food and only what rest can be had while
clinging to the back of a griffin,” Greydon explained. “I don’t
imagine any of us are as strong as we might be.”

“When fate sees fit to challenge us, it
seldom waits until we are ready,” Myranda said.

“Have you been crying?” Greydon asked, wiping
away a tear.

She took his hand from her face and clutched
it tight for a moment. “I have so much to say to you, but there is
no time now. Please, get to the town, make sure no one panics, make
sure the town guard is prepared to keep the people safe, and find
out the status of the troops. We’ve all been out of communication
for two full days at a time when war could come at any hour. If we
cannot contain Turiel, she will seek the front, and she
cannot
be allowed to reach it.”