THE ELETIANS’ TASK
Darkness seeped into Karigan’s dreams, though she
could not swear it was all dreams. She became aware of her head
tucked against Yates’ chest, his arms wrapped around her, and his
hand keeping hers clasped around the moonstone. Dozens of green
eyes shone beyond the edge of the light. The shadow beasts had
found them again. They nudged their noses at the light, but whined
and backed into the dark as if it burned them.
“Keep the light
shining,” Yates whispered to her.
Karigan did not
awaken again until her world shifted. Yates moved and laughed, and
there were other voices and enough light that she thought Blackveil
must have been a dream and she was back in Sacor City in the full
sun of summer. The green eyes of shadow beasts were gone, replaced
by the shimmering faces of Eletians.
“They aren’t real,”
she told Yates. She curled into a ball at the base of the tree,
wondering vaguely how it could be that Yates was now talking to her
hallucinations, unless he was a hallucination himself. Maybe
nothing was real, just all in her head, and if that was the case,
then the vision she’d seen of the king on his deathbed was
similarly false. She smiled to herself and slipped
away.
Someone tipped her
head forward and pressed a bottle to her lips. She drank eagerly
thinking it was just water, but it tasted of the cordial of the
Eletians, of spring rain and ripening fruits. It was taken from her
after just a few swallows. Were her hallucinations now taking over
her other senses? Could one slake her thirst?
The clouds in her
mind parted with the drinking of the cordial, and when she peeled
open her eyes, she found Graelalea kneeling beside
her.
“Are you real?”
Karigan asked.
The Eletian tilted
her head as if considering, the light of her moonstone flaring
around her pearlescent armor and pale hair like a halo. On closer
inspection, the armor was mud-splashed and beaded with rain, wet
feathers and flaxen hair plastered against her head.
Karigan heard the
patter of rain, but did not feel it. She was in a tent. She sighed
in relief.
“You are real,” she said to Graelalea.
The Eletian smiled.
“Yes. You were elusive, but we have found you. You should have
remained in one place when we lost you.”
“But I . .
.”
“I know. The poison
of the thorns in your blood played tricks in your mind. We shall do
our best to draw it out, but Hana was the one with the healing
touch among us, and she is gone.”
“How did you find
us?”
“Excellent tracking
skills, and your Lynx felt the hunger of the beasts, felt their
drive to hunt and that they had caught the scent of something
unusual. He presumed it was you and Yates that excited them, and he
was able to follow their desire.”
Karigan didn’t want
to imagine what it must have felt like for Lynx to touch the minds
of those creatures.
“What about Yates?
Can you help him?”
“Help him see
again?” Graelalea asked. “That is something beyond our power.
Perhaps with time, on the other side of the wall, he would regain
his vision.”
“Have you told
him?”
“We have not hidden
the truth from him. We shall help him navigate the forest. It is
remarkable the two of you survived on your own.”
Karigan thought she
detected respect in the Eletian’s voice. If so, it meant the two of
them had come a long way in their relationship since the first time
they met, when it seemed Graelalea held only contempt for
Karigan.
“For now you must
rest,” Graelalea said.
“What . . . what
about my leg?” Karigan realized it did not hurt presently. In fact,
she did not feel it much at all. She wiggled her toes to make sure
it was still attached.
“The cordial will
help with the pain,” Graelalea replied, “and for the poison, Lynx
suggested leeches. They are, after all, abundant here. We examined
them closely and determined they are untainted by the forest. We
have attached some to your wounds. Would you care to
see?”
“No!” Karigan
recoiled out of reflex at the thought of the leeches, mouths
attached to her flesh and sucking her blood till they became
bloated. Leeches were commonly used to treat a number of maladies,
but Karigan had just about had it with creatures wanting to suck
her blood or eat her.
“We did consider
hummingbirds,” Graelalea said.
By the time Karigan
realized the Eletian had made a joke, she was gone and the tent
darkened. The energizing effects of the cordial faded and heaviness
descended on Karigan. For the first time in a long while, she felt
safe, as safe as she could be in Blackveil Forest. Someone else
could be responsible for Yates, and someone else could keep watch
over camp.
She tried not to
think about the leeches feeding on her blood, and allowed the dark
and heaviness to help her sink into sleep.
She was awakened
sometime during the night by voices raised in anger, dreams of
white feathers falling like snow and a silver key shining on her
palm slipping away from waking memory. It took her a moment to
remember where she was. All was not dark for moonstone and
firelight glowed through the canvas of her tent. Silhouetted
shadows slashed across the tent wall with curt
gestures.
“We have seen
enough!” It was Grant, and he was the loudest. “There is no reason
to go any farther.”
“You may return as
you like.” Graelalea, her voice cool. “We are certainly not forcing
you to continue on with us.”
Grant laughed. It
sounded half-hysterical. “You say that even knowing we’d never find
our way back on our own and that we would be much less safe without
you.”
“You have been given
the option,” Graelalea replied. “I can give you no more than that
for we must proceed with our journey. We are not turning back. Not
yet.”
“So you’d just
abandon us?” Grant demanded.
Graelalea must have
deemed the question unworthy of answer because she provided none.
One of the silhouettes began to drift away.
“What is it, then,
that you’re after?” This from Ard. “What in the hells is so
important that you must keep going on? What are we really here for?
What do you seek?”
Graelalea’s
silhouette paused, the dance of flame enlarging and diminishing her
shadow by turns. “You are here because your king wished it.
I know little of his motives, but you are
here by his choice. I, and my tiendan, we are here because our
crown prince wishes it.”
“That is not much of
an answer,” Ard grumbled. “Why does
your crown prince want you here? I think after what we’ve been
through, you owe it to us to tell us what people are dying
for.”
At first Graelalea
did not respond and Karigan thought perhaps she would not because
she chose not to, but much to Karigan’s surprise, she said, “We
have come back for those who were left behind.”
“Those who were . .
.” Ard sputtered.
Karigan imagined her
Sacoridian companions looking as stunned and curious as she
felt.
“Who?” Lynx asked in
his low rumbling voice. “Who was left behind?”
Karigan felt the
tension, the suspense, right through the canvas walls around
her.
“Our Sleepers,”
Graelalea said.
“Your tree people?”
Ard blurted.
“There is a chance,”
Graelalea replied in a calm voice, “that if the grove at Castle
Argenthyne still stands, we may be able to awaken the Sleepers and
rescue them; bring them back to Eletia.”
“And if this grove
is gone like the one in Telavalieth?”
“We believe it had
more of a chance of surviving than the others. There are . . . were
powers at work at the castle.”
“You fools,” Grant
said. “You see what this forest is, what it does. The answer is
before you. Look what happened to Porter with those hummingbirds.
Monstrous things killed one of your own, too, that Hana. That’s
what the forest does to anything that lives here. And as for your
castle and its powers ? Look what happened to Yates’ magic. It
turned on him.”
“You do not
understand.” A new voice had entered the fray:
Ealdaen.
“Don’t I?” Karigan
imagined spittle flying from Grant’s mouth, like a rabid dog ready
to attack. “But of course, you are the ancient, wise ones, aren’t
you, lording it over us like we’re worms. I’m telling you that it’s
time to turn back. Whatever your castle was, it’s rubble now. And
your Sleepers? Their grove probably rotted to the earth long
ago.”
Silence reigned when
Grant’s outburst ended. Silhouettes dispersed until there was only
the one she identified as Grant.
“What?” he shouted.
“Can’t handle the truth?”
Ard murmured to
him.
“Leave me alone,”
Grant said. “If they can’t face me, what’re they gonna do when they
reach their precious grove and find it gone?”
Karigan sighed.
Grant’s tone had sounded irrational to her, but he’d made some good
points. At least they finally knew exactly what the Eletians wanted
in Blackveil: to rescue their people who had been peacefully
Sleeping at the time of Mornhavon’s invasion.
She could not help
but agree with Grant that the wisest course was to retreat from the
forest, but nothing, she knew, would sway the Eletians from their
task. She only hoped they were prepared for the worst when they
reached Castle Argenthyne, whatever the worst might
entail.