Born to Magic: Tales of Nevaeh: Volume I Read online

  “He has passed the test?”

  “He has passed this test…only this one.”

  There was a rumbling beneath her feet. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mikaal appear in midair and then fall to the ground. She spun and raced to him, knelt at his side, and found relief in the rise and fall of his chest. She looked over her shoulder at the old woman, but found only emptiness where the cloaked crone had stood.

  Putting her hands on his chest, she closed her eyes and called up Atir’s gift. She sent a surge of healing energy into him and seconds later his body arched. He opened his eyes and she saw Mikaal alive within them.

  “Are you unharmed?” were his first words to her.

  She nodded quickly. Seemingly of its own volition, her hand went to his cheek and cupped it. “And you?”

  He blinked a few times. “Where is that nasty old she-coor?”

  “Gone,” Areenna said with a laugh.

  “What happened?”

  He shrugged and sat up. Then he shook his head. His features were puzzled. “I… I’m not sure. I remember the woman touching my chest and then everything went black. I was somewhere…else.” His brow creased as he tried to bring up the memory, but nothing came. “And then I was here.”

  Areenna gazed at him for several seconds. “Whatever happened, you have survived this test.”

  “Then can we do what we came here for?”

  “You should rest a few minutes.”

  He smiled, his eyes dancing as he looked at her. “I’m fine.”

  “Why are you smiling?”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea. But something is different.”

  She was about to ask more, but stopped herself. Whatever happened when he was taken would eventually come forth. Until then, there was other business at hand. “Can you walk?”

  “Why couldn’t I?” He stood, then took her hand and pulled her to her feet. When she was facing him, he asked, “Where?”

  She turned in a circle, and ended up looking in the direction they had been walking before the crone appeared. Staring into the reddish mist, Areenna cleared her mind and searched everywhere. Her eyes flicked to and fro before settling on a distant object. In that instant a sharp jolt snapped within her. “There,” she said, pointing straight ahead.

  He followed her finger, and in the distance, saw a deteriorated structure, much higher than any they had yet seen. Atop the crumbled stone and twisted metal sat something long and thin. Unlike any other metal around them, it gleamed brightly within the dim reddish haze. “It looks like a giant needle.”

  Mikaal adjusted his scabbard and straightened his tunic. There was a tinge of soreness around his ribs and he wondered at its cause. “We’ve wasted enough time. We should go.”

  Areenna stared at him, speculating on what had happened. Was he not telling her or did he truly not remember? I would never lie to you, my Princess. Her cheeks flamed scarlet when she caught his words.

  “I only wondered if you were sparing me the details.”

  “If I knew what happened, you would as well.”

  She looked into his eyes and saw truth.

  “Shall we go or is there more?”

  She shook her head. “We go. But Mikaal, the…woman said there would be more tests.”

  “We’ll get through them as we did this one.”

  “Not we, you. She said you faced more, not I.”

  “Which still leaves us no choice.”

  “There is always a choice, Mikaal.” Yours.

  He shook his head and placed both hands on her leather padded shoulders. “I think, for us, there has never been such a thing as choice.” You know this even better than I.

  CHAPTER 31

  “IT DOESN’T LOOK too far,” Areenna said, staring at the needle.

  “Distance is deceptive in this mist.”

  “I think it’s not the distance, but what lies between here and there,” Areenna said.

  “Why do our abilities fail us here? Do you have any idea?”

  Areenna had been wondering the same. Within her, she felt no differences. Her powers were there, the heat within her belly told her so, yet when she tried to access them, she could not.

  “I feel whole, yet there is nothing.”

  “Then we move carefully,” Mikaal said. He started forward, but not before he took her hand and gave it a gentle but tight squeeze. A flash of darkness swept across his eyes when he touched her.

  “What was that?” Areenna asked.

  “You saw it?”

  “How could I not? Darkness so deep…” She shuddered.

  “It was where they took me.”

  She searched his face. “They?”

  Mikaal shrugged. “It’s but a fragment of memory, yet it seems right.”

  She squeezed his hand. “It will come.”

  Mikaal was not as sure as she. “We are wasting time. I think we don’t want to be here come nightfall.”

  “No, we do not.”

  Still holding her hand, Mikaal started forward. The street was strewn with debris, yet it was clear enough for easy movement. They walked for another five minutes until they were stopped by a mound of rubble.

  “This looks purposeful.” Areenna studied the pile of multi-colored rock and rusted metal. It rose six feet, and the top was the same ragged height across the entire street.

  “It is,” he said. Releasing her hand, he moved to the side of the street, where he searched for passage. Areenna did the same on the other side. “We must go over.”

  “What about the junction we just passed?”

  He looked back. Twenty feet behind them was another junction of two streets. He looked at Areenna and then at the barricade. His training kicked in, not of magic, but of the hours of lessons in strategy his father had pounded into his head.

  He returned to the junction, Areenna two steps behind him, and looked both ways along the crossing street. In one direction, the way was strangely clear of debris. The opposite direction was strewn with piles of rocks making it almost impassable.

  “We’re being directed—or perhaps herded.”

  Areenna went to the mouth of the open street and knelt in the dust. She moved her hands back and forth, clearing the tiny red flakes until the ground became visible. She pressed both palms to it and let her senses free. The instant she did, warmth flowed across her skin. “Directed, not herded,” she whispered. She stood and clapped her hands free of the dust and dirt. “We must go this way. But be wary. I wish Gaalrie flew above.”

  Mikaal caught her longing. He nodded understanding then knelt and repeated Areenna’s actions. When his palms touched the ground, there was a sharp crack as a jolt arced and skittered across his palms.

  Instead of drawing back, he pressed his hands tighter to the ground. Another flash of black crossed his eyes. He felt fingers on his face. And then they were gone.

  “What?”

  He stood and turned to Areenna. “They are afraid.”

  “Of you?”

  “Of what I represent.” He tried to dig deeper, but found nothing. “But you’re right—this is the way.”

  Areenna slipped a water skein from the hook at her side and drank. She offered it to Mikaal, who did the same. When he handed it back, she reattached it to her belt and they started off.

  They passed three closed off junctions, but the fourth revealed another clear street. Turning into it, they walked a dozen paces and froze at the sudden appearance of another cloaked figure. This one was tall and straight, and as they watched, the cloak fell, revealing a tall broad woman with a sword as long as Mikaal’s held in her hands. Her helmet covered everything but her eyes and mouth.

  Long black hair flowed from beneath the helmet, cascading over her shoulders. Her breastplate gleamed in the wavering mist. Her boots reached mid-thigh and both a short sword and a knife hung from her waist. Her exposed skin was the color of a moonless night.

  At the same instant, Mikaal and Areenna drew their swords.

 
; That she was a powerful warrior, Mikaal did not doubt and knew this was yet another test. “Stay here,” he told Areenna.

  We do this together.

  No. It is a test meant for me.

  Areenna looked from the woman to him. Something was wrong, but what, she was uncertain. It was another test, which she accepted, but how could she not stand at his side?

  “Protect my back,” Mikaal said. “There may be others.” He started forward, sword held securely in a two-handed grasp. He looked only at the dark woman’s eyes as he approached; they were twin luminous pale blue orbs, a match to the crone who had sent him into the black chamber.

  The closer he came, the more a sense of wrongness surrounded him. It was a heavy cloying sensation pressing on his body. Areenna was right. His muscles tightened into coiled springs ready for whatever would come. His eyes never wavered from hers. She was the tallest woman he had ever seen. Her bare arms were solid muscle, her thighs the same.

  “You have no business here, man.”

  “But I do,” he replied in a low voice.

  “Only if death is your business and such you will gain.”

  “I have no fight with you.”

  “Who you are is reason enough to fight. I give you one chance to live. Return to where you came.”

  “That I am afraid I can’t do.”

  “Of course you cannot. You are a man.” With that the warrior woman swung at him.

  Nothing is what it seems, came a sharp warning from Areenna at the same instant.

  Mikaal caught her blade on his, the sound explosive in the quiet surrounding them. He turned beneath the blades, slid his free and spun, his sword held over his left shoulder at the ready.

  The woman back-stepped and hefted her sword. Seconds later he saw her eyes narrow imperceptibly and, even as she moved, he countered. Their blades met, separated, and met again. Flashes of metal and sparks flew as they fought, neither gaining, neither losing ground.

  With a final massive swing, the woman attempted to cut through his defenses. Mikaal raised his blade at the last instant to deflect the blow. Pain raced up his arms when their swords met. The pommel vibrated madly in his hands.

  He spun and attacked before she could fully recover from the blow, reigning blow upon blow at her as quickly as his powerful muscles would allow. He beat her back a half dozen feet, as she tried to stop his attack. And then she stumbled over a piece of rubble and fell hard. She hit the ground awkwardly and her sword was knocked from her hands.

  Mikaal stood over her, his sword already descending when deep within his head he heard the voice from the black chamber he had been cast into.

  This Island is a living memory of what man has done.

  He stopped the blade inches from her neck and then lowered the tip to the ground next to her.

  The woman warrior stared up at him for a drawn out moment before rising to her feet. She slowly lifted her helmet off and stared at him.

  The skin of her face was the palest white he had ever seen, even lighter than that of his father. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. “A surprise,” she said and vanished as if she had never been there.

  “How did you know?” Areenna asked when she came next to him.

  “I didn’t, not until the last instant. I remembered something from the blackness. Something they said to me.”

  “You keep saying they. But it was the old woman who took you.”

  He shook his head. “There are only little bits that come up. While it was a single voice I heard, she always said we, not I.”

  “What did they say?”

  “‘This Island is a living memory of what man has done’. Man, not men and women, but man did all of this,” he whispered, waving his arm about at the rubble that stretched on as far as their eyes could see. “That is why no man is permitted here.”

  “It was another test,” Areenna said.

  Mikaal nodded. “So it seems.” Sheathing his sword, he looked down the street. “Let’s find the next one.”

  Areenna laughed as the tension fled from her nerves.

  Once again, they started toward their destination. At the second junction, they turned left, the route obvious by the wide clear street. Halfway to the next intersection, Areenna froze. “There is something…there,” she said, turning slightly left and pointing to a mound of rubble with a cave-like opening in the center. They approached it slowly, cautiously, Mikaal’s hand again on his sword’s pommel.

  The opening was dark and permitted no sight within, yet both sensed something within its black recesses. Areenna mentally pushed toward it, but again she encountered a block.

  “I cannot sense anything.”

  “Nor I. Let’s leave it and push on.”

  “Yes,” Areenna agreed and started forward. She took a step and stopped when she hit another of those invisible walls. “What’s doing this?” she asked, frustration crisping her words.

  They are, came Mikaal’s silent response.

  This time we go together. It wasn’t a question.

  Her face, set in strong determined lines, brought a smile to his lips. “Yes, Princess.”

  They turned and, side by side, entered the darkness. The mustiness of things long gone assaulted them. The darkness was complete. They could see nothing. Areenna took a deep breath and then silently began to recite her old formula for power. On the second refrain, an answering response came from within and in a flash of a heartbeat, twin spheres of white light lay in the palms of her hands.

  As the sparks and colors bouncing in their eyes disappeared, they found themselves in a tunnel, but one such as they had never imagined. All was glass, but not clear. It was as if the glass had melted and fused together to form the tunnel.

  Light bounced from the mirror-like surface, yet within it, behind its blurry, fused facade, things could be seen—horrible and revolting things that should never have been, for they were the misshapen forms of people imprisoned with the glass.

  A hand hung within the tunnel’s glass ceiling. Near it was part of a face. The walls were filled with parts of bodies: deformed faces stared out, caught in wide-eyed panic at the instant of death.

  Melted faces, skeletons, and entire bodies were sealed within the fused glass like animals Mikaal had found trapped within rocks he had broken open under his father’s watchful eyes during their excursions into the northwestern wastelands. He was certain there were animals trapped within this glass prison as well, but didn’t recognize any of them.

  “This… This is terrible,” Areenna whispered, an appalling grief filling her. The light in her hand began to flicker and die. She closed her eyes, cutting off the repellent scene to concentrate on keeping the light burning.

  “There are hundreds here. What could have done this?” Mikaal asked, pushing the words from within his clogged throat.

  “You know, Man, you know!” said a voice from deeper within the tunnel.

  Areenna and Mikaal turned toward the direction of the voice. In the distance was a low form. Areenna grasped Mikaal’s hand, releasing the light from one palm to hold onto him. His power surged through her, strengthening hers, and together they moved as one toward the voice.

  The air turned cold the deeper they descended. While the light from Areenna’s hand lit the way for them, it was unable to reveal the form in front of them. They stopped ten feet from the dark shape.

  “Frightened you are, woman, by this sight. And you, Man, how feel you?”

  “Sad,” was his only response.

  “Sad at what you have wrought, Man? Such emotion is not a part of you.”

  “You know nothing of me or my emotions,” he replied, his eyes narrowing in the effort to see the woman before him.

  Certain are you that you want to see me?

  Areenna’s hand tightened around his when the unspoken words struck at her mind. Coldness spread through her, a dread of what was to come. Yes, woman child, you should be afraid for you have brought this abomination to us.

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nbsp; “Show yourself!” Mikaal said aloud. His words echoed repeatedly in the glass tunnel.

  Nothing is what it seems, Areenna said, pushing Enaid’s warning to him.

  The dark shape rose, the cloak falling to the ground as she did. Around her, light chased away the darkness and both of them gasped. The woman’s skin was as black as the old crone’s face had been, but by Areenna’s light, they saw her skin was not of flesh and blood but scales. From her shoulders downward, iridescent black scales shimmered beneath the light. Areenna trailed her eyes down the woman’s body and found where her legs should have been were the coils of a gigantic snuck.

  She gasped. Mikaal gripped her hand tighter, steadying her with his hand and his mind. “What are you?”

  Eyes, yellow and luminous with vertical slits for pupils, glared at him. “The result of man,” she said aloud.

  “Man created you?” Areenna asked as her pulse slowly returned to normal.

  “Man caused all who live here to be. Man’s need to conquer and control created us. And you have brought him into our domain. For that you shall pay dearly.”

  The huge coils swirled, the woman-snuck rose higher, arched the way a snuck prepares to strike. In the moment the woman moved, Areenna released Mikaal’s hand and stepped protectively in front of him.

  Mikaal started to push past her, but stopped as yet another memory of the black chamber opened within his mind. …you will never be able to protect her. But that is always the way of man. Understanding washed across him, not just his mind, but his body as well. His muscles loosened, his unclenched hands fell to his sides and he stood quietly behind Areenna, his mind open and clear.

  “No!” Areenna shouted. She lifted her palms even as she stepped before Mikaal. Her powers flared and she willed her abilities to come to life. Her shield rose to form a solid wall of protection.

  The black woman-thing’s torso moved from side to side, testing Areenna’s shielding powers until the coils settled and the woman was no longer threatening them. Lower your shield, she commanded.

  Areenna held steady until Mikaal’s hand pressed her shoulder and he whispered, “Release it.”