Born to Magic: Tales of Nevaeh: Volume I Page 29

  It was protected now and she could not use the wraith to destroy it. She guided it across the water to look down at the other Landing, where the four women and the hated one, Roth, stood within the protection of the West Landing. A protection set so strong and created so long ago no one knew from when or how it came to be.

  Rage filled her. Black, seething anger grew to a fever pitch. Above the Landing, the wraith’s scream echoed the fury of its creator.

  <><><>

  “There’s something over there,” Areenna said, pointing to a joining of two streets.

  Mikaal used his sensing to search ahead. There is something…but what? He grasped his sword in both hands as the hot churning in his belly grew strong. Power rushed through him.

  To his right was a scuttling in the debris. Areenna turned toward the sound and tracked it. A half minute later the small head of a skerl poked out, but this skerl was different. The head was hairless and fatter than any skerl she had ever seen. When it locked eyes with her, it growled, baring inch-long fangs.

  Mikaal raised his sword the instant he spotted it. A shiver of revulsion slid over him.

  “Hold,” Areenna called to him as she approached the skerl. The animal arched backward, small pieces of rubble falling from its hairless body. She pushed her thoughts to it, and received a shock in return.

  Its mind was the opposite of its appearance. There was warmth and gentleness emanating from it, a low purr in her mind. She leaned forward, extending her hand toward it carefully as she tried to probe and learn.

  Mikaal moved next to her, his sword held at the ready. Joining Areenna, he too sensed the gentleness coming off the skerl in soft, rolling waves. But then he saw the animal tense. With only inches between Areenna’s hand and the skerl, it launched itself at her hand.

  Mikaal reacted instinctively. Before the skerl reached her hand, Mikaal’s sword severed its head from its body.

  Areenna jumped back, her eyes wide, her hand shaking. ‘Trust not what you see or feel. Be wary’ came Enaid’s voice, reminding her of their talks about the Island. She stepped back to the center of the deteriorated street and took a deep breath.

  “I forgot,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Your mother’s warnings, and Atir’s…they told me not to trust what I see or feel, but to look past and see deeper. The Island is a trickster. This was our first lesson.”

  “Then we best be careful,” he said, his tone wry. “Do you have any idea what we are seeking?”

  Areenna shook her head. “There’s something about the Island out of tune with…us,” she said, her mind tunneling inward, seeking a thought she knew was buried within. “I need to think,” she whispered.

  Mikaal sensed her struggle and edged closer. He did not try to join, but stood rigidly on guard while she hunted through her memories. The presence he’d felt before seeing the skerl still hung at the edge of his mind. It was ahead of them, not far. He could not tell what it was.

  From his left came more scratching within the rubble and he turned slightly to face what was there. Then there was silence. Unease rippled through him. More noise came from behind. Even as he turned to this new disturbance, the noise came again, louder this time, and he knew it was not a lone animal.

  Areenna opened her eyes. The sword. Scabbard it.

  He returned the sword to its scabbard without question and the noises within the rubble stopped. “What?” he asked aloud.

  “We must tread carefully. Our actions are…felt by what lives here,” she said. “Bekar left messages in me. She… We must not disturb the balance here. Our powers are different from what lives here. She said we must use the energy within us, and not draw on anything else. It is the only way.”

  “How do we do so?” he asked.

  “By not reacting. When that thing attacked, it was because I was drawing from it and it took such as a threat. We cannot use our abilities to read other life here. It is a great danger.”

  A wave of discord washed across them. “Ahead,” Areenna said, shaking off the feeling.

  They walked cautiously forward, their powers primed and ready for anything. There was a junction in the street, ten feet ahead. They approached it slowly, searching every crevice, every pile of rubble. A yard short of the junction, a cloaked shape appeared in its center.

  Mikaal and Areenna stopped. The cloak was covered in reddish dust, but what was within the hood was visible. Luminescent, pale blue eyes stared out from the deep ebony skin—skin so wrinkled the shape of its face could not be fully made out. A small mouth with pale lips stretched in a taut slash sat beneath a wide, flat nose.

  “Seek you death, man?” she asked, her voice a whisper carried on the air, but loud enough to be heard clearly.

  Mikaal’s hands turned hot, the power within him ready to be unleashed, yet he held it in tight control. “We seek only knowledge.”

  “A man seeking knowledge,” the dark-skinned woman said, her words followed by a gale of cackling laughter. “No knowledge is possible for your sex,” she said, again in a soft voice, so different from the laugh. She raised her hand, two ebony fingers pointed at Mikaal, “You are forbidden here,” and released an attack of blistering energy.

  The moment she raised her arm, Mikaal braced himself. When she released the force at him, he opened his palm and deflected the attack. Flames erupted on the palm of his left hand, but he did not release them.

  “Your magic will not affect him, sister,” Areenna said, her own weapon glowing within her fists. “Do not force us to use ours.”

  The woman stared at them for several seconds and drew her arm back into the folds of her cloak. She turned her shinning, blue orbs on Areenna; a purple-black tongue slipped between her lips to moisten them. “This is wrong. It smells wrong. A man… This is wrong,” she repeated. “What seek you?” she asked.

  “What all women come here to find.”

  “But not with a man, it is forbidden.”

  “Not for this man. Can you not tell?” Areenna asked.

  The cloaked figure started forward. She moved slowly, as if dragging one leg behind her, and said, “I must be closer.”

  The flames in Mikaal’s hand burned bright. He was prepared to do whatever he must, but the most important thing was to protect Areenna.

  “Protect her not, for she needs it not. You are who must be protected,” the woman said as she drew within a foot of him. She leaned forward and sniffed the air. “How came you to be? Of whose womb are you the sad fruit?”

  “Who are you to ask questions of me?” he snapped in challenge. The flame in his hand rose higher.

  Careful, was Areenna’s warning.

  “Quiet you!” the old crone said without looking at Areenna. “I am the one who watches. I am she whom every woman stepping onto this Island must pass or die.” She exhaled loudly. A wash of sour air filled Mikaal’s nostrils. “Put out the flame, boy!”

  Mikaal met the woman’s stare and held it for a dozen heartbeats. He drew back the power, but held it ready.

  “Answer my question,” she commanded him.

  “My mother is Enaid of Brumwall,” he said.

  “Enaid…” The woman’s eyes went dull for a moment before springing back to life. “A powerful child was she—strong, confident, but not powerful enough to create a man child of power. Yet, I sense you lie not.”

  “What need is there for lies?” Mikaal asked.

  The woman laughed again. “What indeed. All men lie. They cannot help but do so. I cannot let you pass without being tested, man of power,” she said. “And you as well, girl child. Who was your mother?”

  Areenna met the woman’s gaze. “Inaria of Lokinhold.”

  The old crone nodded slowly. “From good blood you sprang, nonetheless you bring this…creature.”

  Areenna stiffened and her power flared.

  “Put away your weapon, it is meaningless to me,” the other woman told Areenna, looking at her fists. “Save your energy. You will need
it if you are to pass through.”

  She turned back to Mikaal. “Are you ready, man?”

  He glanced at Areenna who stared back at him. When she gave a slight nod, he turned to the cloaked woman. “Yes.”

  Her arm shot out from her cloak, her hand open, and five gnarled black fingers reached out and slammed against his chest. There was a jolt, like being struck by lightning and he was no longer on the Island. Everything was black—blacker even than the skin of the woman who had sent him there.

  CHAPTER 30

  “WHAT HAVE YOU done,” Areenna cried and lunged at the old woman.

  “Quiet Girl!” the crone commanded, raising her free hand palm first at Areenna.

  Areenna hit a wall where there was no wall. She slammed against it, her face flushing in pain when it met the invisible barrier. “What have you done with Mikaal?”

  “Quiet! You will be his death if you disturb me further. I have held those men stupid enough to come here, thusly. I have held them until each one died—hundreds have tried, none have gained the Island past this point. This man is the first I have ever known who appears to have power. If his abilities are true, if they are not some formula cast by your doing or those of another, he may not die. But know you now, foolish child, there is only one possibility for his survival: he must think right, learn quickly, and free himself.”

  Her heart pounding, Areenna fought to calm herself and ease her strained muscles so she could find a way to help him. She closed her eyes. Concentrating deeply, she created Mikaal’s image down to the very last detail. Then she pushed her thoughts to him, pushed to join with him, and felt a far off response.

  Like a rantor on hunt, she followed his faint essence, pushing closer and closer until she gained the very edge of his mind. Mika—

  She was flung to the ground and before she could move, the hissing growls of fifty skerls surrounded her. When she struggled against the force holding her, the skerls growled louder.

  “Stop!” the crone shouted. “Continue and you kill him…and yourself!”

  <><><>

  The blackness was solid. He could see nothing, not even the hand he raised before his eyes. Instinctively, he called up his powers. He wanted light. Nothing happened.

  Adrenalin pumped through his veins. His heart was pounding and he knew the odds of this test were weighted heavily against him. His mind worked madly in too many directions, but he forced himself to recall Areenna’s lessons. Calm yourself. Give up control. Open to what is. Find what is needed. All the words and all her lessons played through his head.

  From a distance came the tentative familiar tug of Areenna in his mind. And then it was gone, but it was enough. As he had done once before, and against everything he had known in the years leading up to this journey, he sat down in the blackness and stopped fighting whatever held him prisoner—the old woman or something else, it mattered not. His only desire, his only absolute need, was to be free and to make certain Areenna was unharmed.

  He breathed slowly, taking deep even inhalations and exhaling sibilantly. He needed to hear the sound of his breath in the dead silence, and then he concentrated on the sound until the blackness no longer taunted him. As he gave up trying to control what was happening, he sensed something within the darkness other than him. He did not try to discover what; rather, he sat cross-legged, breathing slow and steadily.

  “I am ready for you,” he said aloud.

  Following his words, came the certainty he was no longer alone. An instant later what felt like a hand touched his right cheek. It wasn’t a hand he recognized, but he didn’t flinch when the fingers traced his face. Another hand joined the first; cool dry fingers moved over his face much in the way a blind man sees another’s image. One hand withdrew while the other lingered on his cheek for several seconds before it too withdrew.

  Following the departure of the hand, there was a slithering near his crossed legs. A snuck? The head of the reptile touched his ankle and slid upward. The weight of its head pressed on the leather of his boot and he knew it was a large snuck, perhaps larger than the one that had attacked them near Morvene.

  He held himself immobile while the snuck continued its travels, sliding from calf to thigh and moving to his belly. It slid under his leather tunic. Its dry, cool scales moved against his flesh. He breathed shallowly as the snuck continued the journey, its head reaching a spot exactly over his heart. It stopped there and he knew it was poised to strike.

  He held still, his mind open to any who would seek his thoughts.

  You do not fear this, said a voice from the very center of his head. Yet there is fear. Show me.

  The voice was so alien it took him off guard. It was neither male nor female but something else. He sensed evil, but at the same time, good.

  “I am not afraid,” he said aloud.

  You are not afraid, but you fear. What is it you fear for? Look to yourself and find it.

  How I can find what I know not? He tried to work out what was being asked. The snuck tensed. The chilling twin points of its fangs touched his chest, but went no further.

  His mind was open to whoever was there, but instinct warned him such was not the objective of this…being. He settled his thoughts and cleared his mind of anything not relevant and sought to understand what he must find. In a fraction of a heartbeat, he knew what this other had been sensing.

  Within a far corner of his mind, he found the block he himself had placed there without knowing. Carefully, he unlocked it and, when he did, emotion overwhelmed him. It struck in waves, boring into the very core of where his power and abilities lay. He contained it and as he did, allowed it to open.

  “Areenna,” he said. “I fear for her.”

  Yes, because you fear in this way, you will never be able to protect her. But that is always the way of man. Man protects what he believes is his by right. You believe Areenna is yours by right.

  For the first time since gaining the calmness within the black, his anger rose. Of course, came the thought and on its tail, a heaviness so deep it threatened his ability to breathe. Anger is a man’s way of denial.

  Moving quickly, the snuck drew its long body upward and wrapped its length around his chest, its fangs never moving from the spot above his heart.

  “You are afraid of me,” Mikaal said, the understanding of what was happening clear now.

  Naturally, we fear you. This Island is a living memory of what man has done. The ground you sit upon has been defiled, destroyed, and the remains poisoned for eternity, held in place by the memory of every spirit who died here.

  “And you think by stopping us you will be doing good?” he challenged. “By stopping her you will stop more death from happening? If that is so, then this is no test, it is an exercise in stupidity. If Areenna does not succeed, there will be nothing left of Nevaeh, and nothing left of our world except the darkness that began this battle. They will never give up. The Circle of Evil will destroy what good remains in Nevaeh. Afzal will win all.”

  Something changed in the blackness. The snuck constricted further around his chest. If it squeezed tighter, his ribs would crack and his lungs deflate. How know you of Afzal?

  Why ask questions when my mind is open to you? There are no blocks, there is no deception. If you want answers, seek them yourself or kill me. But she will succeed no matter what you do.”

  You invite me completely in?

  I said the words did I not? Accept the invitation or let your snuck be done with me. I will play your game no longer.”

  We accept.

  Like a waterfall he’d once stood under in the mountains of Brumwall, the entity poured into his mind. Mikaal stiffened when it delved inside, his stomach churning at this violation even though he had permitted it. He did not know how long it lasted, but when it was over, he collapsed, the snuck no longer a part of him.

  Rest while we think.

  He sank into unconsciousness.

  <><><>

  The cloaked black crone turned to A
reenna. With a wave of her hand, the skerls scattered and disappeared into the rubble. “Stand woman,” she ordered.

  Areenna scrambled to her feet and faced the woman. She stared into the luminous blue eyes, glaring with a combination of anger and fear—fear for Mikaal. While she stood there, face to face with the woman, she calmed her anger and concentrated on her abilities.

  “Do not try, it will not work. Will you open to me? Will you risk your mind?”

  “Just my mind? And to what purpose?” Areenna shot back. Her words, brave as they were, did not appear to have any effect on the other.

  “Perhaps to save his life. Perhaps to die.”

  The words hung dark and heavy before winding through her mind, infiltrating her thoughts until strangely, a new realization was born: Mikaal had become as much a part of her as anything or anyone could be. Why, she knew not, but know it she did, and accepted that she would do whatever was asked of her to save him. She would not allow him to die. Without him, she would be…

  Within her core, the abilities making her what she was built stronger, yet at the same time, on the heels of her thoughts, a change came over her. There was a cooling, not within her belly, but her mind. Slowly and carefully she released the locks and gave herself over to the other. Do what you must, she told the woman.

  Gently, in opposition to what was done with Mikaal, the old woman raised both hands and placed them on either side of her head. There was a slight jolt, barely felt, when her fingers touched Areenna’s skin. Seconds later, the touch was gone.

  Confused, Areenna could only stare at the other woman. “You did nothing.”

  The thin pale line of the crone’s lips broke into what could barely be described as a smile. “I did only what was necessary. Had the darkness found a hold within you, you would not be standing here now. And your…man,” she added, somehow turning the word into a sneer, “will live as well…for now. And for you, young Areenna, the testing is done. For him, I cannot say. Be wary, much is not what it will appear to be. There is danger ahead. Use your abilities but understand well, his maleness will be an affront to all you encounter.”