Prophecy's Daughter (The Endarian Prophecy Book 2) Page 21

  “Out with it,” Arn said. “What’s bothering you?”

  “Now I am remembering things. I can’t go with you. I failed miserably in my study of the spell book you gave me. I began hurting the people around me in the vale, and no one could help me. I’m so afraid that I will hurt you in the same way.”

  “I would have rescued you no matter what, but the only reason Rafel didn’t try to stop me is because he knows that no wielder has any power over me. All because of this.”

  Arn pulled Slaken from its sheath, the dull nonreflectivity of the blade’s surface making it seem like a hole torn in the fabric of the daylight.

  Carol’s face lightened. “I had forgotten. Nevertheless, it’s not going to solve my problems. I’m rested now, but if the past several weeks are any indication, I won’t be for long. And if I spiral down and sink into madness on you, then what have you accomplished?”

  “If that happens, then I have given you another chance. I have given myself a chance to help you. And I will have loved you until the end of your days, without letting you rot in a drug-induced haze. But I don’t believe in such a fate. You’re going to figure out how to beat this thing, whatever it is.

  “When we find a place to set up our home for the winter, you’re going to get busy again. I had all your books packed, and this time I will be here to listen to your ideas, discuss options and plans of attack, and hold you on bad-dream nights instead of letting you wander the valley in a daze.”

  Carol leaned over and wrapped her arms around Arn’s neck, kissing him. The softness of her slightly parted lips lingered on his after she gently pulled away.

  “I’ve missed that,” Carol said.

  “You’ve missed it? Gods, I would kill an army just for that one kiss.”

  She snickered, suddenly overcome by a fit of laughter.

  “What?” he asked, although he started picking up the giddy desire to giggle himself.

  “Oh, my love,” she gasped. “We are going to have to work on your romantic responses. A vow of mass homicide isn’t commonly considered poetic crooning.”

  Arn failed to hide his distress at the comment, but Carol smiled and leaned forward, taking his face between her hands. “But, my love, the feeling is there, and that works for me.”

  Then she kissed him, deep and long, such that had they not felt a pressing need to be at a better place before nightfall, they would have passed the afternoon in the same spot, on the pine needles, beneath the trees.

  Carol said she felt that she could ride her own horse, although she was a bit worried that the animals would go wild around her now that she was awake. That fear did not materialize, so they mounted up and began a steady climb up the slopes into the high country beyond.

  The clouds continued to spit a few flakes of snow all afternoon, but nothing more. By late evening, the temperature had dropped to the point that Arn decided it was time to set up camp for the night.

  They stopped by a stream, and he unpacked the animals. He led them a short distance away and took the dual precautions of tethering them to a long rope tied between trees and hobbling them. Each was given an ideal spot to graze on the abundant grass.

  By the time he returned to Carol, she had already gotten a fire blazing, preparing beans for dinner. Arn unpacked the bedrolls and laid them out side by side on a tarp he spread across the ground. He added some shelter from the wind by staking another tarp and tying it to a branch to form a modified lean-to.

  After dinner Arn found some tea in a bag and brewed up a small kettle. The two sat together late into the evening, sipping tea and talking as the fire reflected off their faces and the wind sighed in the treetops. As good as he felt to be reunited with his betrothed, she seemed shaken by her ordeal. For the first time since he had known her, Carol seemed to doubt herself.

  She was worried about falling asleep, but her nervousness abated as she crawled into the blankets beside Arn, and he wrapped himself around her, her head resting on his chest. She fell asleep to the steady thumping of his heartbeat.

  Dawn found Carol in much the same position but with the arm that she had been lying on fast asleep so that she had to swing it about limply until the blood began circulating again.

  Arn chuckled softly as he watched her. “That’s a graceful little dance.”

  “You’re not winning any sympathy points this morning. By the way, I don’t remember any dreams last night. Did I do anything?”

  “Not much. You got a little restless, but I just talked to you softly and held you, and you settled right back down.”

  The relief on her face revealed how she felt about this bit of news.

  They had a quick breakfast, packed the horses, and headed out once again. The day passed much like the day before as they worked their way higher into the mountains. That night, she had a nightmare that awakened them both. He listened to her vision of ripping a young doe’s throat out with her teeth and the thrill the kill had given her. Arn put his arm around her shoulders, his touch gradually calming her. They rebuilt the fire and sat cuddled together while he told her funny stories of his travels with John, Ty, and Kim. When he described how he and Ty had been forced to hog-tie the bewitched John, Carol laughed aloud. Then, wrapped in his arms, she drifted off into a sleep that lasted until dawn.

  At noon on the fifth day, steam rising from a small canyon on the south side of a ridge drew Arn’s attention. He led them winding down the steep cliff wall on a trail made by deer or mountain sheep until they reached a flat meadow covered in thigh-deep grass.

  The sun broke through the clouds of steam that rose from several spots around the meadow to paint little rainbows against the far slope. A stream meandered through the center of the meadow, and Arn was rewarded with the sight of pools filled with trout of all sizes. They dropped the packs, hobbled the horses, and turned them loose, although he had no doubt that they would stay put.

  The meadow formed the bottom of what turned out to be a hollow carved out of the mountains by glacial forces millennia ago. Mists rose from a half dozen hot springs and three geysers that went off several times an hour, spraying great shoots of steam.

  The net effect of all the subterranean activity was to keep the hollow humid and the temperature above freezing. The surrounding cliff walls rose several hundred paces instead of the thousands back in Areana’s Vale.

  “I love it!” Carol said after they had made their circuit. “I absolutely love it.”

  “Sold.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon selecting a place where they would set up their dwelling. The spot they picked was at the base of a cliff that had a broad overhang ten paces above the ground. The location was on the east end of the hollow so that the late-afternoon sun angled under the eve, which was what Carol called the overhanging ledge, giving them a stunning view of the sunset.

  They rolled out tarps on the ground, and Carol began unpacking. She placed the contents in an organized fashion along the walls, protected from dampness by smaller tarps.

  Arn performed a miraculous inverted climb along the cliff wall, where he fastened the corners of the tent, allowing it to drape down to be secured to the ground. It formed a sheltered bedroom that blocked any wind, rain, or snow that might blow underneath the ledge but left them the ability to see out from the bulk of their living area.

  By sundown, they had the elements of a rudimentary shelter in place. Arn and Carol began exploring along the streams that emerged from springs, both hot and cold, around the cliff wall. The closest was a hot spring far too warm to swim in.

  “Let’s start a fire,” Carol said, leading the way back toward their new home.

  They each grabbed dry branches on the way, and Arn used the small hatchet Rafel had provided to chop them into bits just right for the fire. Piling the sticks up on a large flat stone just outside their shelter, Arn was getting ready to pull out his kindling when Carol magically brought forth a full blaze.

  Carol cooked a pot of beans over the fire, and
they ate, settling down afterward to sip tea in the fading light. As night fell, the mists rose from the hollow, effectively hiding all but a couple of the brightest stars from view on the moonless night.

  Arn held the metal cup between both his hands, letting the warmth of the hot tea spread through his palms and into his fingers. He sat beside Carol so that their shoulders and legs touched as they faced the fire.

  “I want you to tell me about your studies of the book I gave you.” As she started to object, he continued. “I know that I have no magical training. But just bouncing ideas off another person, even if untrained, gives a fresh perspective.”

  She leaned back, thinking. “That sounds logical.”

  “What have you discovered about the manuscript so far? What are you trying to accomplish?”

  Late into the evening, Arn listened as Carol explained how she had carefully examined the book for days before actually starting to read the pages. She talked about how the writing, which was so legible and clear for the beginning exercises, digressed to the point of wild scrawling for the most advanced lessons at the end. She believed the author had gone mad.

  Arn looked at her intently. “I think that in the morning you should unpack the book and start again.”

  Carol gasped.

  “Only this time,” he said, “you’re going to have me here as a silent observer. If something seems awry, I’ll interrupt the session.”

  “That may not be good. I should bring each exercise to a close in a controlled fashion.”

  “And unless I feel that you’re in danger, I agree that’s what you should do. But I have a couple of questions.”

  “Okay.”

  “When you described your experiences during the kata, it sounded like you were picking up sensations from external sources.”

  “Yes. I believe that it opened my mind to elementals that emotionally influence nearby animals and people. I think that those elementals were consciously working to overwhelm my resistance so that they could directly possess my mind.”

  “Perhaps there’s a more direct explanation.”

  “Such as?”

  “Perhaps the kata was opening your mind to directly receive feelings and impressions of the living things around you. Perhaps no elementals were involved at all.”

  “What?”

  “The sensations you were describing sounded a lot like the normal thoughts and feelings of people or animals. Perhaps the magic described in that book may work completely differently from what you studied under Hawthorne.”

  “Right . . . I guess it’s a possibility.”

  “And what if the wielder who wrote that book was already mad when he started writing it?” Arn asked.

  “If that’s true, I’m sunk.”

  “Not necessarily. Just because someone is mad doesn’t mean that they aren’t smart. What if, paranoid, he was protecting his discoveries from prying eyes?

  “You said that the handwriting got wild and hard to read toward the end of the book, and if not for that, the last exercises would have been much shorter than the first ones. What if the crazed old fool wanted to make anyone who found his work think that he went insane trying to master more and more difficult exercises? What if he wanted potential usurpers to try the most dangerous exercise first?”

  Arn saw her eyes widen as she weighed the meaning of his words.

  “That’s it! The deep spawn wrote his book backward!”

  “I think so,” said Arn. “The only reason you survived the experience is because you’re so powerful. Tomorrow you should reexamine the book.”

  “I want to start right now.”

  Arn reached out and gently grabbed her arm as she tried to rise. “Tomorrow. You need to be well rested. We should start in the daylight.”

  She started to argue, then paused, took several deep breaths, and looked up into his eyes, her face shining with warmth in the firelight. “You amaze me. In one evening, you see a possibility that I didn’t consider during my weeks of studying the manuscript.”

  “Sometimes you can be too close to a problem to see all the angles,” said Arn.

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get to sleep now. I can’t wait for morning.”

  “Fine. Sleep wasn’t really at the top of my agenda anyway.”

  When at last they both roused themselves, Arn brought up wood for a fire, and the couple cooked a simple breakfast of beans and dried bread. After that, he rigged a setline across a deep pool in the stream where the shadows of many mountain trout darted about. After he baited all the hooks, he took the hatchet and set about the work of gathering stacks of dead logs and branches. That done, he used one of the horses to drag them beneath the overhang.

  Carol greeted him with a smile and a wave on his first trip back, holding up a piece of paper, her face flushed with joy. “Look what I found inside one of the packs,” she said. “It’s a letter from Father. He put the note where I would find it once I started unpacking.”

  “Good man.”

  “He said he loves me and he has faith that I will overcome this challenge. Gods, but I hope that I can live up to his expectations.”

  Arn lifted her chin and looked into her brown eyes. “In that, I have complete confidence.”

  “I wish I did.”

  “Think about it. I slept without my knife after we made love last night. If you had any bad dreams, they were too mild to wake me. I think your mind is healing from the damage it endured. Your psyche seems to be rebuilding itself stronger than before.”

  “Promise me you’ll wear Slaken constantly when I start trying the exercises again. At least until we’re sure that I’m capably handling the spellwork.”

  “So long as you don’t mind us making love while I’m wearing it.”

  “I knew you’d say something like that,” she said. “Seriously, I need to read through the exercises at the end of the manuscript to see if we’re right about its true organization. I’ll let you know before I try any of the katas.”

  “Good plan,” Arn said as he headed back out to gather more wood.

  By the time he returned with the next load, Carol had propped herself up against a fallen tree, immersed in her study of the manuscript. Arn left her alone in concentration and went to check the setline.

  He was pleased to discover he had hooked three good-size trout. He cleaned the fish and, upon returning to their camp, set about cooking lunch. By the time the catch was fried a golden brown, Carol had been drawn away from her studies by the mouthwatering smell.

  “Oh my, that smells so good,” she said, holding her nose out over the pan. “It sure is great to have something besides beans and hardtack bread or jerky.”

  As they ate, she told Arn what she had discovered so far in her reading of the last exercises. The last two had been a variation of a simple meditation technique that she already used. However, the third from the end appeared to be the blocking technique referred to in the first kata she had attempted.

  Snowfall began late that afternoon, the flakes large and fluffy. As night fell, the wind howled in the heights. The storm lasted for three days, and both Arn and Carol were pleasantly surprised at how dry their shelter under the ledge remained. Although only a few inches of snow piled up in their hollow, the trail that led out was completely blocked.

  “It looks like you’re stuck here with me for the next few months,” Arn said.

  “That sounds very nice.” Carol smiled up at him from where she sat beside the fire, reading.

  “Yes, it does.”

  But as Arn spoke those three words, a sudden gust lifted Carol’s left sleeve, briefly revealing the fiery brand on her shoulder. Even though he’d seen the mark many times before, tonight it washed him in a wave of dread.

  34

  Areana’s Vale

  YOR 414, Mid-Autumn

  The autumn snowstorm arrived with a fury that took the people of Areana’s Vale by surprise. It had been mild, a few high clouds, but no sign of what was to come. The
first indications of bad weather came late in the day as the wind picked up and the temperature plummeted. The soldiers shivered atop their outposts as sharp pellets of sleet stung their exposed faces. John finished his archery class, noting the uneasiness with which the men he was training regarded the worsening weather. Considering the horrible experiences Carol had related from last winter, their worries were understandable.

  He made his way to his preplanned rendezvous with Kim a league up the valley, where a bend in the stream formed a small waterfall, the sound of which they both loved. He spotted her silhouetted against the pearly-white face of the cliff, the mists of the falls rising around her, unbothered by the cold of the storm.

  John stopped short. He could not get over how he had become this most fortunate of men, to love and be loved in return by this Endarian princess. But she had changed. She had grown less formal in her speech and interactions with the people of Areana’s Vale. And High Lord Rafel had chosen to treat John as a son because Kim was his wife.

  Queen Elan had sent Kim to inform her sister and their father that Kragan still lived and was hunting Carol. Kim had accomplished her mission but chose to stay in the vale, even after Arn had taken Carol away. She was convinced that, given time, he would help her sister recover.

  “Hello, dear heart,” John called as he walked toward her.

  Her smile spread across her face as the sunrise moved across the early-morning sky. “You’re late,” she said. “You know, it’s not a good thing to keep a woman waiting in bad weather.”

  “It’s not a good thing to keep you waiting in any weather. I was dealing with some overeager students.”

  Kim kissed him lightly, letting her fingers linger in his hair. “Ah yes, and how do the lessons progress?”

  John took her by the hand and guided her to an outcropping that provided shelter from the wind. “Surprisingly well. Some of the guards have taken to true bowmanship as if they’ve been awaiting a proper course of instruction all their lives.”

  “I bet Gaar wouldn’t take too kindly to a statement like that.”