The Raging Fires (6 page)

I brandished my weapon, calling on all the powers embedded in its wood.
Now. I need your help now!

The kreelix careened, ripping at the air with its wings. Then it plunged toward me, the thick brown fur that covered its head and body flattened from the force of the wind. Its mouth opened even wider, thrusting its fangs outward. I realized that the creature lacked any eyes—that, like me, its ability to see came from some other source.

As the three fangs arched toward me, I stepped back, catching my heel on one of the rowan’s roots. Though I struggled to keep my balance, I tumbled over backward. The staff flew from my hand, rolling down the hillside.

I started to push myself to my feet—when my hand struck the leather belt of my scabbard. The sword! I grasped the hilt. As I pulled the blade free, it rang faintly, like a faraway chime.

Scrambling to my feet, I had barely enough time to raise the sword before the kreelix struck. It flew straight at me, its wings and voice screaming as one. Now I could see the veined folds of its ears, the dagger-like edges of its claws, the scarlet tips of its fangs. Its shadow raced over the trees below the knoll, then up the grassy slope.

Planting my boots, I reared back.
Do not fail me, sword!
I braced myself.
You are all that stands between us and death.
I swung.

All at once, a blaze of scarlet light exploded inside my head. At the same time, a powerful force slammed into me. Even as it threw me backward, it seemed to reach deep into my chest. To rip the strength from my body, and the sword from my hands. I spun through the air, unable to breathe. With a thud I landed, then rolled to a stop.

I found myself on my back. On grass. And leaves. Yes, it felt like leaves. But where was this place? A short, labored breath. Air at last! I tried to rise, but could not. The clouds spun above me. And something else, something darker than a shadow.

“Merlin, watch out!”

Though I couldn’t tell whether the cry came from within me or without, I forced myself to obey it. Weakly, I rolled to the side. A split second later, something slashed into the ground, barely missing my head. It rang softly, like a distant chime. Like . . . something else, something I could not quite remember.

Straining, I sat up. Blurred, unconnected shapes swam before me. A branch . . . a claw . . . or a blade? The broad trunk of a tree—no, it looked more like . . . I wasn’t sure. Hard as I tried, I could not focus. Could not remember. Why was I so dizzy? Where was this place, anyway?

With great effort, I concentrated on the bloodred shape that was growing steadily larger before me. It had two, no three, gleaming points in its center. It was round, or almost round. It was hollow, and very deep. It was . . .

A mouth! All of a sudden, my memory flooded back. The kreelix was almost upon me! It stood on the knoll, its back to the rowan tree, its wings spread wide. Its fangs glistened, as did the sword it held in a clawed fist. My own sword!

I made an effort to stand, but fell back to the ground, exhausted. The mouth drew nearer. I tried to wriggle away. My body felt heavier than stone.

There was no strength left in my limbs. Nor in my mind. The cavernous mouth started to blur at the edges. Everything looked red. Bloodred.

I heard a crack, like splitting wood. The piercing shriek came again. Then silence—along with total darkness.

5:
N
EGATUS
M
YSTERIUM

I awoke to find myself, once again, on the leaves. Something brittle and tasteless clung to my tongue. I spat it out. A twig! Someone—my mother—lifted her head from my chest, where she seemed to have been listening. Tears stained her cheeks, but her sapphire eyes shone with relief.

Lightly, she stroked my brow. “You have awakened, at last.” She looked up into the rustling boughs of the rowan tree and closed her eyes in thanks.

At that instant, I glimpsed just behind her a pair of huge, bony wings. The kreelix! I rolled to the side, smacking into her full force. She cried out, tumbling down the slope like an apple dropped from a branch. With a single leap, I landed on my feet. Wobbly though I was, I positioned myself between her and the dreaded beast.

Then I caught myself: The kreelix hung as limp as a discarded scarf, suspended by the branches of the rowan tree. Thick, gnarled boughs wrapped around each of its wings, while several more pinned the furred body against the trunk. Its claws, once so threatening, dangled lifelessly, while its head drooped forward, obscuring the fangs. A deep gash, stained with purple blood, cut across its neck.

“Don’t worry.” Cairpré’s hand closed on my shoulder. “It’s quite dead.”

My mother puffed up behind us. “So am I, almost.”

I whirled around. “I’m so sorry! I thought . . .”

“I know what you thought.” She forced a grin, even as she rubbed a tender spot on her shoulder. “And I am glad to know beyond doubt, my son, that your strength has returned.”

I turned again to the kreelix, draped against the tree. “How . . .?” I began. “But . . . it was—how?”

“I do so love someone who can ask a clear question.” Rhia emerged from behind the trunk, grinning sassily at me. In her hand she held my sword, gleaming in the scattered sunlight of the knoll. She lifted the scabbard from the ground, thrust in the blade, and handed them to me. “I thought you’d prefer your sword without all that blood. Such a ghastly purple color. Reminds me of a rotten fish.”

Seeing the confusion on my face, she glanced at Cairpré and Elen. “I suppose we ought to fill him in. Otherwise he’ll be peppering us with unfinished questions all day long.”

“Tell me!” I roared. “What in the world happened? To me—and that flying maggot over there.”

Cairpré’s head wagged. “I tried to warn you. It all happened too fast. A kreelix lives on magic, you see. Eats it. Sucks it right out of its prey, as a bee takes nectar from a flower. Since I, like everyone else, thought the last kreelix died centuries ago, I never bothered to tell you about them before.
Foolish error, Greatest terror.
A better tutor would have taught you that the only way to battle one—as the wizards of old learned the hard way, I’m afraid—is slyly. Indirectly. The worst thing you can do is to confront it head-on, exposing all your magic.”

“As I did.” Buckling the sword, I shook my head. “I had no idea what hit me. There was this flash of scarlet light . . . Then all my strength, all my life it seemed, was ripped away. Even my second sight felt crippled.”

The eyes beneath the bushy brows gazed at me solemnly. “It could have been worse. Far worse.”

I tried to swallow, but my throat felt rougher than the rowan’s bark. “I could have died, you mean. So why didn’t I? Right then?”

His hand reached over and tapped my wrist. At first I noticed nothing. Suddenly I spied the puncture, smooth and round, in the sleeve of my tunic. A thin ring of charcoal surrounded it. Something seemed to have melted—not ripped—right through the cloth.

“The fang,” he declared, “struck here. A finger’s width to the side and you would have died. Without question. Because even the tiniest contact with the fang of a kreelix will destroy the power, as well as the life, of any magical creature. No matter how strong, or large.”

Pensively, he ran a hand through his mane. “That was why the ancient wizards and enchantresses tried so hard to avoid face-to-face battles. Especially with weapons that held their own magic, which simply gave the kreelixes more to dine upon.”

“Like my sword here.”

“Yes, or like the great sword Deepercut you rescued some time ago. One of the island’s oldest legends tells how Deepercut was hidden, buried somewhere, for more than a hundred years—just so no kreelixes could find it.” He chewed his lip. “Now you see, my boy, why I didn’t want you to wield your staff. For it carries, I suspect, more magic than a dozen Deepercuts.”

I glanced toward the magical staff lying among the leaves. “How then did they fight the kreelixes? If they couldn’t do it face-to-face?”

“That I don’t know. But I can promise you this: I intend to find out.” His eyes narrowed. “In case there are any more left.”

I blanched. “So how did you stop this one?”

He glanced gratefully at the Cobblers’ Rowan. “Thanks to your friend over there. And your talented sister.”

All at once, I understood. “Rhia! So you did it! Using tree speech! You spoke to the tree, and it snatched the kreelix from behind.”

She gave a nonchalant shrug. “Barely in time, too. Next time you try to get yourself killed, at least give us a little warning.”

Despite myself, I grinned. “I’ll do my best.” Then, as I glanced at the giant, bat-like form hanging limply from the branches, the grin disappeared. “Even a tree as powerful as this one couldn’t have held any creature that could fight back with magic. So why didn’t the kreelix? Surely, if it lived on others’ magic, it must have had some of its own.”

“Magic?” Cairpré rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Not as we normally think of it. But it did possess something. What the ancients called
negatus mysterium,
that strange ability to negate, or swallow up, the magic of others. That was the scarlet flash—
negatus mysterium
being released. If directed at you, it can numb some of your magic, at least temporarily. But it won’t kill you. That part is left to the fangs.”

He scooped up a handful of leaves, then let them drift back to the ground. “Yet the kreelix’s own powers ended there. Leaping, Changing, Binding—all the skills you’ve been trying to develop—the beast itself couldn’t command. So it had no power to strike back once caught by the tree.”

I indicated the corpse. “Or to keep you from using my sword to finish it off.”

“No,” answered Rhia, her face clouded. “Before any of us could try to get the sword, it used the blade on itself.”

Cairpré nodded. “Perhaps it feared us so much that it chose to slit its throat before we could. Or perhaps,” he added darkly, “it feared we might learn something important if it had lived.”

“Like what?”

“Like who has kept it alive, and in hiding, all these years.”

I shot him a questioning look. The poet’s face, already grave, grew more somber still. He fingered the air, as if turning the pages of a book that only he could see. “In ancient times,” he half whispered, “there were people who feared anything magical—from the merest light flyer to the most powerful wizard. They saw all magic as evil. And, too often, wizards and enchantresses would abuse their powers, justifying such fears. These people formed a society—Clan Righteous, they called themselves—that met secretly, plotting to destroy magic wherever they found it. They wore an emblem, concealed most of the time, of a fist crushing a lightning bolt.”

He drove his own fist into his palm. “Eventually, they started to breed the kreelixes, beasts as unnatural as their appetites. And to train them, as well—to attack enchanted creatures without warning, to wipe out any magical powers completely. Even if the kreelixes themselves died in the process, their victims would usually also die.”

Soulfully, he gazed at me. “Their favorite targets, I’m afraid, were young enchanters like you. The ones whose powers were only just ripening. A kreelix would be assigned to watch each of them, to stay hidden until the very moment those powers began to emerge. It might have been the youth’s first Changing, first triumph in battle—or first musical instrument. At that moment, the beast would sweep down from the sky, hoping to prevent the young wizard or enchantress from ever growing up.”

Seeing Elen’s morose expression, he grimaced. “This, truly, is Fincayra’s darkest day.”

I cringed, as if the shadow of the kreelix had passed over me again. I knew now that whoever had sent it had done so for one particular purpose. To destroy me. To keep me from using whatever powers I possessed. Or—was such a thing possible?—to keep me from ever facing Valdearg.

6:
T
WO
H
ALVES OF
T
IME

Unable to sleep, I rolled from one side to the other on the bed of pine needles. I tried crooking an arm beneath my head, bunching the tunic under my knees, or staring at the thick web of branches above me. I tried thinking about the evening mist, filtering through stands of trees at sunset; or the starlit sea, sparkling with thousands of eyes upon the waters.

Nothing helped.

Again I rolled over. Eh! A spiky pinecone jabbed the back of my neck. I brushed it aside, nestled my shoulder deeper into the needles, and tried once again to relax. To rest, at least a little. To move beyond the doubts, the wonderings—so vague I couldn’t even put them into words—that poked at me like a pinecone of the mind.

I drew a deep breath. The fragrance of pine, sweet and tangy, flowed over me like an invisible blanket. Yet this blanket lacked enough warmth to ward off the chill night air. I shivered, knowing that before long the first snow would fall in this forest.

Another deep breath. Normally the smell of pine calmed me right away. Perhaps it reminded me of the quieter days of my childhood, long before the pieces of my life began to shift like river pebbles under my feet.

In those days I often climbed up to my mother’s table of healing herbs. Sometimes I simply watched her sifting and straining, while the wondrous aromas filled my lungs. Other times, though, I mixed my own combinations, meshing whatever colors and textures pleased me. All the while—the smells! Thyme. Beech root. Sea kelp. Peppermint (so strong that one whiff popped open my eyes and tingled my scalp). Lavender. Mustard seed, straight from the meadow. Dill—which always made me sneeze. And, of course, pine. I loved to crush the needles, so that my fingers would smell like a pine bough for hours.

So why, tonight, did they do so little for me? They only pierced my shoulders, my back, and my legs like so many little daggers. Curling myself into a ball, I tried again to relax.

Something nudged the middle of my back. Rhia’s foot, no doubt. Maybe she, too, was having trouble sleeping.