Born to Magic: Tales of Nevaeh: Volume I Page 32

  He ran to where they huddled over his wife and saw the strain written across their features. Helpless, he watched them minister to Enaid. “What is it?”

  Ilsraeth looked up, her eyes haunted. “I don’t know. It is something from the Island. Let us work.”

  He watched as they hovered over Enaid. Atir pulled open Enaid’s cloak and slipped her hands beneath the tunic to press them to Enaid. She closed her eyes and bent her head low. But there was no response.

  Numb with fear for Enaid, all Roth could do was watch as the women did their best to aid his wife. Finally, Ilsraeth looked up at Roth. “We can do nothing. She is not being harmed. She is caught within something and we can only wait until she frees herself.”

  “Is it the sorceress?” Roth asked.

  Atir shook her head and without looking away from Enaid said, “It is not of the Dark.”

  Roth took a deep breath and looked at Charka, who stood where Roth had left him. The kraal was immobile, staring across the water to the Island, huge shudders passing through him.

  Roth went to the animal and stroked it gently. He lost himself in thought, reflecting on anything other than Enaid or Mikaal and soon time slipped by until he noticed the day was almost gone.

  He turned to see what had happened to Enaid and those surrounding her. And then, from across the water, came the echo of an explosion. At the same instant, Enaid’s body arched and a sudden flash of sparks discharged from her. The three women were thrown a dozen feet away.

  <><><>

  Timon sat on the deck of his boat, a pot of water and herbs brewing nearby on a small metal brazier set astride three legs. To his right, Areenna’s treygone perched on the railing in the same place it had been since she had left it there. Gaalrie had not moved or looked in any direction but that which Areenna and Mikaal had taken.

  He had never seen a bird stay rooted for so long without food or water and he was becoming edgy at the amount of time the pair had been gone. He had, not for the first time, thought about taking the boat and leaving, but the instinct that had brought him so far east held him where he was.

  He looked at the pot and saw the water was boiling, the herbs dancing madly within, and turned to pick up the clay cup waiting to be filled. As he did, there was a loud popping, much like a rock exploding within a heated fire. He turned back just as the air above him opened in a brilliant display of sparkling light and two tangled forms crashed onto the deck.

  Gaalrie’s wings spread wide and the treygone gave a loud shriek.

  <><><>

  When the power of the eight struck them, a white explosive light swept Areenna and Mikaal away. Like the twisting winds of a funnel storm, they were drawn within and, even as they grabbed hold of each other, their arms and legs entwined, they were picked up and sent spinning at the speed of the winds.

  Stinging bolts struck their heads and bodies with a combination of fire and pain and all they could do was cling to each other as they gyrated in maddening circles. Within their minds myriad visions raced far too fast for either to understand.

  The spinning stopped as unexpectedly as it had begun. They crashed to the ground.

  Areenna lay still, her heart racing, her body crushed by something. She forced her eyes open and found Mikaal lying atop her, his arms still locked about her, her arms and legs holding him in a tight grip.

  He moved then—his eyes opened and a low groan escaped his clenched teeth. He lifted his head and saw Areenna beneath him. He rolled to the side and felt her release him. “What happened?” he croaked.

  Areenna shook her head and then sat. She looked around and found Gaalrie next to her on the deck of Timon’s boat. “How…?”

  Mikaal rose unsteadily and drew her up. They turned at the same time and found Timon but a foot away.

  “Impressive entrance,” Timon said, a single eyebrow raised high above a brown eye, the empty cup forgotten in his hand. “A bit overdone, think you not?”

  Mikaal stared at Timon and dusted himself off. He looked at Areenna who was doing the same and the two of them burst into laughter. “You have no idea,” he said to Timon.

  “Ah, but I can’t wait to hear the tale.”

  Without responding, Areenna looked at Gaalrie who, impatient, half hopped and half flew onto her shoulder where she pressed her beak into the curve of Areenna’s shoulder and neck. Areenna stroked her aoutem and drew from it the warmth it needed to share. Yet her exhaustion did not ease.

  “How soon can we cross?” Mikaal asked, his voice growing stronger, but he, too, felt the heavy strain of the day.

  Timon nodded. “As soon as I pour myself some tea and put out the stove. There is enough for three. Care for some?”

  Mikaal looked west and saw the sun was almost gone. He turned to Areenna. “It was afternoon when we…”

  What seemed seconds was much longer. We will have to look deep to learn what happened to us, she responded silently. She gazed across the water, expanding her senses until she found the faint emanations of the dark thing hidden within the crannies of the palisades. The instant she did, she withdrew. It still waits.

  “The tea will be appreciated,” Areenna replied. “But, Master Timon, I must warn you, the crossing will be treacherous.”

  “Of course it will. I carry the two of you and it seems many ah…strange things happen around you. What will it be this time?”

  Mikaal exhaled loudly. “The same as what attacked us this morning.”

  Timon shrugged. “Why should it be a problem, you outwitted them before.”

  Areenna and Mikaal shared a glance before she said, “The day has taken its toll. What I did on the crossing took much strength. We are tired, the day has been…difficult.”

  “Then we must trust ourselves and my boat. She has never failed me.” He stroked the wood of the table he stood beside. “Perhaps, as we drink, you will answer my request from this morning. As you see, curiosity is a strong force within me. Why else would I have waited for you?”

  “Why else indeed,” Areenna said with a look that told him she appreciated his lie. “But the time is not yet right to answer your questions. One day, I will fulfill my promise to you, Master Timon, but I am afraid today cannot be that day.”

  Timon shook his head. “Women,” he muttered with a smile that showed he expected nothing less and turned to retrieve two more cups. After pouring the tea, and when Mikaal and Areenna were seated, he went below, returning with some smoked meat.

  “Eat.” They took some of the meat, and Timon, looking up at the fast darkening sky asked, “Just how bad will the crossing be?”

  <><><>

  Charka stopped shuddering and Roth raced to where Enaid lay. Her eyes were open and she was struggling to sit. The others were doing the same and when he knelt, she reached up and pulled him to her. “They are out. Mikaal and Areenna have survived,” she said and drew him tight.

  He held her until the tautness in her body eased. “How long?” she asked.

  “The day is almost gone.”

  She looked for the others and saw they were gaining their feet. “I need to stand.” Roth helped her up. The other three came to them and, without speaking, waited for Enaid.

  “I was with them,” she explained, “but I was not. I saw them kneeling in the center of a closed circle of cloaked ones. They…Mikaal and Areenna were covered in such energy as I have never witnessed.” She looked at the darkening eastern horizon. “It seemed to have been only seconds. Such power,” she whispered. “And there were eight, not one.”

  “Eight,” Atir echoed. “So many gathered in one place and they allowed Mikaal to live… How can such have come to be?”

  As one, Ilsraeth, Atir, and Laira turned to Roth. “The time is now to tell us the truth of Mikaal.”

  Enaid stepped between them and went to Roth’s side. “No, it is time to tell you of Solomon Roth.”

  Three sets of eyes, one set as brown as the earth, another as blue as the sky, and the third a pale brown with spe
cks of reddish colors dotted within the irises turned to her. Their stares were powerful and commanding and Enaid nodded her head before them.

  “Let us circle, it will make it easier.” With her right hand she grasped Atir’s; with her left, Ilsraeth’s. Laira took each of their hands in hers. The four women closed their eyes and, thus connected, Enaid showed rather than told her story.

  When they separated, they fell silent, each lost within their own thoughts. Atir spoke first. “So much have you gone through, My Lord,” she began, but faltered. “And how much you have brought us cannot be measured in words. Nothing of this shall pass our lips. You were right to keep it hidden. It shall accompany me to my grave.”

  Ilsraeth spoke next. Her eyes were sad, her voice barely a whisper. “There will be much danger from this point on. When the people of Nevaeh learn of Mikaal’s powers they will…react badly, especially the women. But it will go deeper than that.” She turned to Roth and looked from him to Enaid. “Mikaal and Areenna will change everything in our world. Their children…”

  Roth stared at her, comprehension not quite dawning. “You speak as if they are—”

  “—mated?” Ilsraeth smiled. “They know it not, but they are already so. Yet it will not happen for a long while.”

  Before Roth could say anything else, Laira called out. “They leave the far Landing.” She hesitated and added, “The wraith will return. It is a terrible abomination. I saw it when the foretelling took me. But it remains unclear. I only know it attacks the boat and…”

  At the Landing’s edge, Charka gave a long high pitched cry that echoed hauntingly.

  “It comes,” Enaid said, looking skyward at the rapidly descending night. “It comes to destroy them and with them our hopes.”

  “We must protect them,” Laira said, looking from woman to woman, Roth no longer a part of the picture.

  “We failed before.”

  “We must try again,” Enaid said, her eyes locked on the boat bobbing in the water, its sail limply awaiting a breeze.

  <><><>

  “Push,” Timon commanded when Mikaal released the stern rope.

  Bending, he shoved the stern with all his strength and when the boat moved, jumped aboard and made his way to where Areenna and Timon stood. “Now we drift and await a friendly breeze,” the master boatsman said.

  While they drifted, twilight settled into darkness. Timon stood at the wheel, keeping the boat’s bow pointed at the far Landing. After too many minutes of watching the sail hang limp, he said, “Unless you can find a way to raise the winds, we may end up as easy pickings for those things.”

  “My abilities lie not in that direction,” Areenna said, her tone apologetic.

  Mikaal, listening to them, paused in thought. With a motion of his head to Areenna, he signaled toward the stern. They went and sat on the rear rail. “When you received your gifts from the three women, you sensed…I don’t know how to explain it, but it was like something striking into you. Do you not feel a change in you since we…arrived on the boat?”

  Areenna looked down at her hands. “I have been reluctant to look within,” she admitted, “I am afraid of what they may have done.”

  “I understand,” he said. “But we have to look. We have to know.”

  She stared at Timon’s broad back. “We should be alone without other eyes.”

  “We have no choice, Areenna. Do you not sense what comes?”

  “I do,” she whispered. “I have since I woke on the deck.”

  “Bring up your power. Show it to me.”

  She closed her eyes again and delved within. Her power flared instantly, the heat in her belly exploded, its strength taking her by surprise. When she opened her eyes her hands were encased in a blue so pure it bespoke a crystal pool, sparkling beneath the midday sun.

  “Mikaal,” she whispered.

  Hold, ease back.

  She did as he asked, containing the shimmering blue light with no small effort, but after a few seconds the strain eased and she became comfortable with the increased power.

  Try, she asked him.

  Mikaal took in a deep breath and without needing the formula he had created, pulled his own power forth. The flames did not just rise—they appeared instantly. No racing hot blood drew them up. He only started to think about them and they spread a hairsbreadth above the surface of his hands. He lifted his arms, his palms facing each other and the flames leapt across the short distance and combined. He dropped his hands and the fire was extinguished.

  Join with me, Areenna said. Before his nod was completed, they were together. It was not as it had been before, it was vastly different. Each saw and felt everything about the other; there was nothing hidden.

  When they separated, Areenna’s face was covered by a deep red flush. “I didn’t know.”

  “I tried to hide it. I didn’t want it to come between us. I never…” I didn’t know how it would affect us.

  She smiled. Now you know. They knew as well, she told him.

  He thought about the eight snuck-women whose darkness held no taint of evil, of this he was certain. Yes, they knew.

  No one can know how we feel about each other, not until we are free of the darkness, Areenna told him, and stored away the newly discovered sharing of their emotions just as Timon spoke.

  “Princess, we need your magic, now!”

  Gaalrie’s fierce hunting cry rang at the same instant.

  Looking up, Areenna and Mikaal saw the shadow of the giant wraith circling high above, blocking stars from their sight as it moved toward them.

  CHAPTER 34

  “THERE!” SHE SHOUTED, staring outward from the edge of the cliff, seeing not what was before her, but what her two hidden creations saw.

  She had waited throughout the day; sitting patiently, awaiting their return. She had known the moment the two had left the protection of the Island and appeared on the boat: one second they were not there, in the next they were. She saw them, felt them and, the instant she had, cast a formula to still the air surrounding the Island. When she was certain of their helpless floundering upon the night water’s choppy flow, she sent her final creation at them.

  Jet black and surrounded by a visceral aura of gray-black mist, red-eyed and angry at having been forced to wait, it gave off the putrid stench of death. Its legs, as thick as saplings, hung below a wide heavy body; each of its claws was the size of a coor.

  Behind it, the smaller wraith sat on the shelf within the rock wall, awaiting its mistress’s command with ragged impatience, its claws scratching harshly on the rocky ledge. Not yet, she whispered into its head, wait. She watched the boat for several minutes. Then, while the extension of her powers circled above the boat, she sent the command to attack.

  When the giant wraith aimed its body downward, she released the smaller one to join the fight.

  <><><>

  The crystal blue power erupted in Areenna’s hands at the sight of the flying monstrosity and without thinking, she pushed it at the limp sail. When the power met the sail, it billowed outward. The mast groaned with the strain of filled silks and the boat shot forward.

  The muscles of the boatsman’s arms bulged as he fought the wheel for control of the now hurtling boat. Areenna and Mikaal watched the black sorceress’s evil corruption bank into an angled dive.

  Held there by Areenna’s strong asking, Gaalrie screamed from her perch on the deck, her wings spread wide for balance as she watched the charging wraith.

  Together, Mikaal said, the fires of his abilities swelling between facing palms. Next to him, Areenna withdrew one hand from the task of moving the boat. The boat slowed slightly, but continued toward the far bank.

  They joined, two entities and two minds with new powers and abilities, and became one. Their powers swirled around them in an aura of light and fire and they released this new weapon at the fast approaching evil.

  The sky lit with a bright flaring of blue, yellow, orange, and red against the fast darkening sky
. Within the blazing light the monstrous black thing continued diving. The closer it came, the bigger and fiercer grew the ball of fire and light surrounding it, pushing against the shields the black witch had built to protect the wraith and slowing its attack.

  Areenna and Mikaal’s concentration was so totally fixed on the monster above they were unaware of the second wraith’s silent approach from the opposite direction, but Timon was not.

  “Another comes from the south,” he shouted, fighting the wheel to hold the boat on a steady course.

  Take it, Mikaal said.

  Areenna drew her hand from the large wraith and turned to the new danger from the south.

  With the loss of Areenna’s aid, Mikaal drew deeply from within and, breathing heavily, ramped up his power.

  Areenna struck at the smaller wraith, sending a stream of the crystal blue low over the water to where the dark beast jetted toward them. Just before the light struck the smaller creature, it dove beneath the water and disappeared.

  Areenna searched madly for it in the bouncing waters, but could not find it. She started to turn to Mikaal, to join with him again, when the boat was hit from below.

  There was a loud, shuddering crash. The boat lifted into the air, hung there for a moment and then crashed wildly downward. The bow cut beneath the surface of the water; waves rushed over the ship’s deck while Timon fought to keep the vessel from floundering as the bow returned to the surface.

  Mikaal was knocked from his feet and sent rolling across the deck, his stream of energy cut off while he fought for a grip to stop from being thrown off the boat. Areenna cried out sharply, her feet ripped from beneath her when a second surge of water roared over the side and caught her unprepared. Swept across the deck by the rushing water, she was halfway over the far side railing when a hand caught her arm.