Chapter 19 – Choices

 

Once in the darkness of the stairwell, I froze. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but presently I noticed little slits in the walls that admitted the dim twilight – enough, at least, for me to make out the steps at my feet. I stood on a narrow landing, the steps curving up to my left and down to my right. Damian. Yatol. And somewhere on the staircase, an Ungulion guard. I couldn’t hear him on the steps below me, so I guessed that he was somewhere in the upper levels. That meant that going down was the safer way.

Part of me had a nagging feeling, too, that we might be wrong about Damian being held in the upper chamber. What if Damian and Yatol were both down with Azik? I cared about Mr. Dansy, of course, but the two most important people in my life at the moment might be somewhere else. I closed my eyes. Damian. Where are you?

Suddenly metal hinges squealed into the silence, and the lower stairs flooded with golden light. Two rasping voices cut across the sound of the whining door. My blood turned to ice.

“Why him first? I say let Azik take the other. He is weaker. If he gives in, then we still have the other.”

“The Breaker can take them both. He understands the power of…persuasion.”

Somewhere above my head came the echo of boots. The Ungulion guard was coming down. I drew a thin, ragged breath, found myself shaking all over. The voices grew louder, the light brighter, almost blinding in my night-adjusted eyes.

“Somehow I doubt even Azik will be able to make our old friend talk.”

“One of them knows where the medallion is. Azik will find out. Somehow.”

I backed up, slowly, trying to be silent. Three steps, four. I stood slightly behind the pillar, watching the doorway, willing my friends to stay put. I couldn’t help praying that the two Ungulion would go out through the door. If they kept coming up, I was lost.

The echoing footsteps above kept getting closer. The light below, brighter. I just held my breath and froze against the pillar. My mind careened over a hundred wild ideas. If my arm hadn’t been hurt, maybe I could climb the pillar and stay out of sight. Or somehow do one of those crazy split-jump maneuvers like the guy on one of Damian’s video games. Or take all three Ungulion out with the knife Yatol gave me.

Or maybe I should just let them take me.

The door opened.

“Intruder!”

“That’s the one who got away!”

The door slammed shut.

Oh no. Tyhlaur. This would be the perfect time for Kurtis to use his cell phone diversion. Or something. Someone had to do something. Aniira. Anyone.

The rattle of boots on the steps above me finally propelled me into motion. I crept down the stairs as quickly and quietly as I could manage. A huge wooden door reinforced with rough iron bars stood shut at the bottom, but I wasn’t about to barge through. I got down on elbow and knees and crept under the staircase, flattening myself out the last few feet so I could get as far under as I could. I just hoped there weren’t any rats or spiders down there. When my hand brushed some tufty, sticky strands of something I bit my tongue on a yelp. Waited.

The footsteps on the last few stairs rang deafeningly in my ears. I watched the painful-looking boots come into view, closer and closer. If he came any nearer, he would surely see me.

But he wasn’t expecting an intruder, no more than the other guards had been. He just stopped where the staircase got too low, paused a moment, then turned back to the stairs. I waited till the sound of his steps faded, then let out a huge sigh. Now for Azik.

I scrambled out from under the stairs, brushing myself off nervously in case some insect had hitched a ride. After a moment’s thought I untied the swathe and sling protecting my arm, tossing the strips of cloth back under the stairs. It was too much of a pain not having two usable arms.

After staring at the door for a good minute, I grabbed the latch. The door was going to creak horribly, but I just gritted my teeth and pushed it open as gently as I could. The hinges whined a little in protest, but it wasn’t very loud. Not nearly as loud as the scream that shattered the silence just as the door opened.

Heart in my throat, I crept into the chamber. It was pitch dark, all but a pool of light in the very center of the pillared hall. A few more steps and I glimpsed the source – a circle of hellish green light simmering just above the stone floor, casting everything around it in a sickly glow. Yatol, chained to a pillar. Damian, barely visible, tied to the opposite column. And between them, the ghastliest figure I had ever seen.

Azik was no Ungulion. I had no idea what he was. He towered over Yatol and Damian, much taller than any Ungulion I had seen. As I crept closer he reached out two flawless hands, pale, long and sinister. They moved like fluid swirls of white in the pulsing light. I couldn’t get a glimpse of his face – if he had one. The deep hood of his robe seemed empty, if only because his head was bent.

I watched, horrified, as Azik approached Yatol. One bone-white finger traced a line from Yatol’s forehead to his temple, then suddenly grabbed his jaw. Azik’s other hand stretched to the noisome flame. I couldn’t see what happened, but Yatol suddenly writhed in pain, his back arching like a cat’s. He tried to twist his head out of Azik’s grip, but the Breaker only lifted his hand, wreathed in green light, and shoved it against Yatol’s brow.

“Stop! You’re going to kill him!”

Damian? The raw anguished voice brought tears to my eyes. If only I could get close enough without Azik seeing, maybe I could free him from his bonds. I couldn’t tell from my spot if he was tied with chains or ropes. Ropes. Please let it be ropes.

Azik jerked his hands away from Yatol, turning toward Damian.

“You do not wish this?”

I fell to the ground in a shuddering heap, as if my knees had just been smashed from behind. If evil had a voice, that was it.

I lifted my head in time to see Azik approach Damian. He reached out those hands, taking Damian’s shoulders. The fingers seized, rigid. Damian screamed in pain.

Not Damian. Not that kind of pain.

I was on my feet, running. Leapt out from behind the pillar. Heard Yatol and Damian both shouting. Grabbed Azik’s arms. For the briefest flash of a moment I thought I saw his eyes, dead, clouded, staring at me from a mouthless face. Then it was gone, the hood dark and empty. Azik twisted his hands toward me. I flew backwards, hitting the ground hard.

Two long strides and Azik was standing over me.

“Who is this?”

I glared up at him from the flat of my back, my hands raised protectively near my face. I couldn’t stop shaking, from terror or fury or maybe both at once. My breath came fast, not shallow. I hated him. Every fiber of his being. He was everything I hated.

My voice gritted out through chattering teeth, “I’m their vengeance.”

He laughed. The sound rattled and echoed from inside him, as if it were welling up from a deep pit.

“I am Vengeance,” he hissed. “I am Retribution. I am Silence.”

“For Silence you’re talking an awful lot.”

Shut up, Merelin! Haven’t you learned your lesson yet?

The hands flashed out, grabbed my wrists and hauled me upright. I bit my lip on a cry of pain as my shoulder twisted awkwardly. He flung me toward the center of the chamber, where the awful green fire licked the stone floor. I caught my balance just before I stumbled into the flames, and lifted my head.

My eyes met Yatol’s. The anguish on his face stole away my breath, and my throat closed on burning tears. We looked at each other for what felt like an eternity, then he shook his head slowly, just a little. I forced myself to turn away, found Damian staring at me too, with the same look of terror and grief and anger. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, but couldn’t force my lips to move.

Azik was behind me. I could tell without glancing over my shoulder. I froze, closing my eyes. Suddenly his hands fell on my shoulders and the most harrowing feeling shot through me. My fingers and wrists arched convulsively, a hard driving pain shooting down my arms like someone was firing a nail gun into my nerves. Traces of blue electricity danced over my knuckles.

In my mind I heard his voice, “What would you give to save these two? They mean much to you, I can see.”

Cold nausea gripped me. Oh God, no. I turned my gaze back to Yatol. No more grief or fear shone in his eyes, only anger. His face was white with fury. Azik withdrew one of his hands from my shoulder, dropping it down to the middle of my back, exactly over the tender bruise. I braced myself, but no pain came. After a moment a sluggish tugging crept into my veins, starting at my fingers and toes, drawing back up my arms and legs. It seized my face and slid down my neck.

I couldn’t breathe. My lungs pulled and pulled, but the air just stuck in my mouth, like there was no hole in my throat. I couldn’t even twitch a finger.

“What would you give?”

My vision rusted and clouded, while my thoughts flickered from Yatol to Damian, wild and incoherent. The thoughts seemed senseless to me, but the voice in my head hissed with satisfaction. Then images began flashing into my mind – an empty room in my house, an empty chair at the table. Emptiness in my heart and a barren grey grave. Yatol, in a cell. His face haggard. Gaunt. Skeletal. A skull on a pile of bones.

I wanted to scream, to make him stop. Tried to drive the images away, but they pressed around me, more and more gruesome.

“What would you give?”

He would do it. He would kill them. Pick them apart, bone by bone. Break them. Devour them.

“What would you give?”

“Anything.”

The choking paralysis vanished, and I collapsed onto my knees sucking air into my lungs. Azik swept around to stand in front of me, drawing two streams of flame from the circle. His hands flashed out toward Yatol and Damian.

“Then give me but one piece of information. Where is it?”

I coughed, to avoid answering immediately. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Yatol struggling, twisting his hands around in his bonds, trying to pull them free. Finally I drew a sharp breath and frowned up at Azik.

“Where is what?”

“Stupid girl. Pyelthan! Tell me where it is.”

“What do you care about it?” I asked. “It doesn’t look like much.”

“It means nothing to me. My motives are none of your concern. You promised you would give anything.” The flames flared higher. “I hold you to your oath.”

“Aren’t promises not binding if you’re under duress?”

He lifted his hands, threatening.

“All right! What if I don’t know?”

“Shall I find out if you do?”

“No, you don’t have to do that.” I pushed myself to my feet, staring up at him with all the strength I could summon. “But I need something more from you than you not killing them.”

Azik hissed. “I don’t negotiate with prisoners.”

“I’m not your prisoner. You won’t kill me, because then you won’t find out where Pyelthan is. They don’t know where it is,” I said, nodding at Damian.

Yatol’s hands emerged from behind the pillar, slick with blood.

“So I would lose nothing by killing them!” Azik cried, flicking his wrists to make the flames spin.

I balled my hands into fists and took two steps closer to Azik, just as Yatol stepped up behind him.

“Tell me where I can find Davhur!” I shouted.

Laughter rattled inside him. “Somewhere the living will not find him.”

I staggered. Azik curled his hand toward Damian, the flames twisting into a sort of rope. His voice clashed in the silence:

“Tell me what I wish to know!”

“It’s right…here…”

I reached to my belt, suddenly snatching Yatol’s knife and flinging it with all my might at Azik, praying that he actually had a body and I wouldn’t hit Yatol accidentally instead. The knife struck straight in the middle of Azik’s torso, but didn’t hit anything or pass through him either. It just fell with a heavy thud right through him, landing on the ground. Right at Yatol’s feet.

“Foolish! You don’t have the strength to wield that blade against me.”

My mouth twitched in a smile. “No, but he does.”

Azik spun around, coming face to face with Yatol. He shuddered, staggered half a step back. I could see the tip of the blade glimmering through the back of his robe. His hands shot out, rigid, the green flames dripping down like a thin trickle of water. All around his feet the circle of fire swirled, the sick green mixing with deepest shadow. The pillars hummed with vibration, a low cacophony.

Yatol pulled the blade free and stumbled backwards. Azik stretched his hands toward him, fingers straining, clawing vainly at the air. The sound rose to a pulsing drone. Stones cracked from the pillars and the ground shook. The whirlpool of fire and shadow inched up around Azik, wrapping smoky arms around him and dragging him down. All at once the air ruptured in a torrent of noise. The four central pillars imploded and a grey wind rose all around us. I wrapped my arms around my head, watching as a great black pit opened beneath Azik, sucking all the wind and stone and flame into its vortex. Azik’s wails rose above the noise.

Then came silence, and deep still shadows.

Yatol gave a half-choked cry of anguish and dropped to his knees, blood streaming down his forearms from some wound I hadn’t seen. The blade clattered to the ground. I snatched it and ran to slice through Damian’s bonds, then rushed back to Yatol. I caught him just as he slumped forward unconscious.

“Merelin! What were you thinking?” Damian cried, stumbling over to me. “He could have killed you!”

“He was going to kill you,” I choked. “He would have killed you both. I had to come. Don’t you see?”

He wrapped his arms around me, dropping his head against my shoulder. It was my injured arm, but I didn’t tell him that. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as the rest of me did right then.

“Thank you,” he murmured. He gripped me harder. “I thought I would never see you again. You saved my life. You saved our lives.”

I couldn’t answer. I just bowed my head and cried.

After a moment I felt Yatol draw a shallow breath. His head twitched a little, then his hand reached up to touch a tear that had fallen on his cheek.

“Don’t cry, Merelin,” he whispered.

Damian released me and helped Yatol sit upright, both of us holding his arms until he seemed stable. It was only then that I noticed that they both had strange marks like grey cobwebbing on their necks and forearms. Even I had a trace of it on my wrists. It ached, too, like a remnant of that horrible tugging sensation in my veins. I laid my hand on Damian’s arm.

“How long were you down here?”

“Not long,” Damian said. “He hadn’t started with me before they brought Yatol down.”

He stopped abruptly. In the spectral light his face went sickly pale, then he launched himself to his feet and staggered into the shadows, retching.

For a moment Yatol and I sat alone in silence, unmoving. Yatol stared down at his injured hands. Then he lifted one of them, hesitant, and touched my cheek gently. He didn’t say a word. He just held my gaze with those deep dark eyes, while my heart fluttered recklessly. The feel of his fingers against my cheek set my spine shivering.

I could have sworn his head started to bend toward mine, but at exactly that moment the dungeon door squealed open. All of us were instantly on our feet, Damian scrambling back to us, Yatol standing protectively in front of me. For a moment only darkness met our anxious gazes. Then a pale blue light flashed through the open doorway.

Yatol drew up in alarm, but I would know that kind of light anywhere.

“Kurtis!” I cried.

The light flicked over toward us, making the shadows around us all the darker.

“You found them!”

Four figures crept into the dungeon. Kurtis came first with his makeshift flashlight, while Aniira and Tyhlaur followed behind with Mr. Dansy supported between them. Mr. Dansy took his arms off of their shoulders, sending them forward with a little shove. They came running toward us.

Tyhlaur seized Yatol in a bear hug, clinging to him as if his life depended on it. I’d never seen him so overwrought. Aniira put her hand gently on my shoulder.

“Azik?” she asked quietly.

“Gone.”

“Yatol?”

I nodded. She glanced at Damian then, and took half a step back. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but I thought a quick blush rose to her cheeks. I had to smile.

“My brother, Damian,” I said. “Aniira.”

He was staring at her, too, looking more awkward than I’d ever seen him. I jabbed him gently with my elbow and he made a curious little bow. She smiled and returned the gesture, casting him a shy glance over her shoulder as she turned away. I elbowed Damian again, leaning toward him and whispering in English,

“I don’t know, Damian. I thought you went in more for the geeky brunettes. But the red-headed ninja spy chick fits.”

He pulled me into a hug, leaning his head against mine. “Shut up, you brat!”

“We need to get out of here,” Mr. Dansy said suddenly, limping a few steps toward us. “The Ungulion will be back soon to see what’s happening here.”

We all stared at each other blankly. I’d managed to forget we were still sitting in the den of Ungulion. Mr. Dansy was right. My uncle was right. I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around that one.

“The tower is unstable now, too.” Yatol pointed to the empty space around us. “The central supports are gone.”

“We took out the Ungulion on the stairwell,” Aniira said, running up to the dungeon door. “We just need to avoid the patrols in the hall.”

Tyhlaur and Kurtis sprinted back to join her, leaving the four of us who were injured to come more slowly behind. Damian went to help Mr. Dansy, and Yatol turned toward me. He seemed even more haggard than he had a moment before, and I reached out instinctively to touch his arm.

“Azik,” he gasped. “It really got me this time. Can you help me?”

I nodded and wrapped my arm around his waist.

“You can lean on me,” I said, taking a tentative step forward.

He stumbled and sank against me, and I staggered under his weight.

“Not…too much…”

“Your shoulder,” he mumbled. “I’m not hurting it?”

“You’re fine. Let’s go.”

It seemed like just a few hours had passed since he had helped me walk. Only I didn’t think I could carry him if he fell. I just prayed he could make it back to camp.