Baleful Signs (Dagger of the World Book 3) Read online

  “I guessed as much. I feel like I’ve been put through the Black Keep’s water weir.”

  “Ha. At least you’re still joking,” Terak murmured, but inside his heart was fluttering with anxiety. He looked up at the greenish canopy far above them. It’s only been what, half a day? It was hard to tell down here in the cool dark of the forest what exact time it was, but by his reckoning it would place them past midday. If the poison had spread this far in that time, it could cover half her body by the time that they found the Everdell elves of the Second Family!

  “What’s the Fifteenth Maxim?” Reticula said softly, not sounding stronger at all despite the water and food and healing balm.

  Terak knew what she was referring to, the fifteenth saying from the Book of Corrections which formed the Enclave’s Path of Pain. “A soul that has never been tested in this life is no soul at all,” Terak said, but the words felt heavy in his mouth and left a bitter taste after he had said them.

  “The Path teaches us that every trial, every struggle—” Reticula gasped as she heaved a deep sigh and pushed herself to her tottering feet. “Every pain is an opportunity to learn. An opportunity for excellence,” she said. But from where Terak was standing looking at the wavering young woman, he wasn’t sure that he could believe her words.

  She shouldn’t have to suffer like this. He frowned deeply. But he knew that she would never understand—and certainly never agree when he thought heresy: Maybe the Path of Pain can be wrong . . .

  One thing was abundantly clear to the elf: no matter what the Path indicated that they should do, they only really had one choice, which was to move on.

  “Can we leave Ghrike here?” Terak whispered. “How long will the enchantment hold?”

  “I already removed it,” Reticula wiped a hand over her forehead, slicking back her sweat-drenched hair. “I think he’s our friend, now . . .”

  Terak licked his lips nervously. He had no idea what a forest troll’s notion of friendship would entail. But right now, I need to get Reticula to the Second Family’s Demiene Flowers, through the rest of the dangerous Everdell Forest. He was painfully aware that he hadn’t managed to protect her in their first encounter under the dark limbs of the trees.

  Maybe having a friendly forest troll helping us isn’t such a bad idea after all . . . he just finished thinking. Suddenly he was lifted into the sky as Ghrike lumbered to his feet and deposited first Terak on one shoulder and then (far more gently and considerately, the elf noted) cradled Reticula up to his other.

  “Thank you, Ghrike,” Reticula said weakly. “Forward. Find the elves.”

  And when the troll broke into a loping, earth-trembling gait that ate up the land underneath them, Terak realized that they may have lost their tough little Tartaruk pony in the wilds—but they had gained one giant forest troll to bear them instead.

  8

  At the Gate

  The half-alive man in the dark robes was surrounded by a purple-crimson light. He could still see the white-laden gales of the Tartaruk storms as they swirled and buffeted and threatened him, but he could neither hear nor feel their bite.

  That was because within the purple-and-crimson glow that surrounded the half-alive man, all was silent and deathly still.

  Not deathly still, the man corrected himself. He knew only too well that dead things were seldom still. Not in the first few watches after their soul’s departure from their body, when they would wheeze and tremble, nor in the longer seasons when their bodies crumbled away into the dirt.

  And of course, he considered, there are many other ways in which dead things move under the Moons, aren’t there?

  There was a sudden movement from the half-alive man’s chest. If there had been any onlookers, then they would have seen the heavy robes and tunics that he wore bulge and ripple as if some creature was constrained there.

  The movement appeared to pain the half-alive man now, just as it had done every other time that it had happened on their long journey. He groaned, clutching a bandage-wrapped hand to the thing at his chest, and wheezed.

  “Easy . . . easy . . .” They were both so close after all, so close to their goal.

  If the thing that he carried would just be patient for a little more time . . .

  “Aldabarath, Yggsdrafach, Mukkaxilon—” the man’s guttural croak of a voice started to chant. As he did so, he raised his arms up from his sides to the air above him. The half-alive man had once been burly, many would have agreed. His shoulders and arms were still wide and had some hint of grandeur about them, even if he was wearing dark robes and rags that were rent and torn and dirtied.

  “Ghikon, Apulaxia, Fuffefik—” His voice became wheezy and light, and did not match the large frame. He droned on the ancient and arcane names that should never have been uttered anywhere in Midhara, let alone where he stood right now. His voice sounded like the sigh of the wind, and it was only the protective light of the Blood Gate that stopped the storm gales from stealing it from him.

  The man stood in a wide circle of bare earth and rock, everything lit by that same hellish Ungol-light that emanated from the super-structure floating above him.

  If the man was interested (he wasn’t) he would have noticed that the Ungol-light had no source and no direction. It was merely a diffused radiance that centered around the Blood Gate, like a bruise in the sky. It may have appeared as nothing more than a haze, but it was obviously as powerful as any shield of battle magic that the half-alive man had ever heard of. The fierce Tartaruk winds and snowstorm couldn’t penetrate its outer edge at all.

  And above his outstretched arms hung the Blood Gate.

  This close, the structure revealed its true, awful grandeur. The stone doorway was immense, with its lowest posts hanging some thirty feet in the air. There were no seams where blocks might meet. Instead, it appeared as though it had been fashioned out of an entire mountain—or rather, that it had been grown.

  Its surface was humped and riled with bulbous stone forms like tendons. Inscribed across all of it, as far as the eye could see, were strange whorls and circles in some arcane and alien language.

  The very language that the half-alive man spoke now—an accursed tongue, spoken by those who lived on the far side of the Gate.

  “Abfallon, Agkiddu, Zunash, Meghikoor—” the half-alive man wheezed and hissed . . .

  And something happened.

  The purple Ungol-light appeared to intensify, just as it had some hours ago, when clouds of flying black shapes had coalesced out of the Gate and shot across the tundra and mountain sides . . .

  The Baleful Signs have already begun, the half-alive man knew. First had come the Ungol-light, and then the plague of Estreek had burst into the world, next would come—

  The silent zone of the Blood Gate started to murmur, as if the very air in this bubble was protesting what the man was doing, and what was about to happen . . .

  It was a deep, vibrational sound like the muffled, barely audible tremors that the man had heard on his trudging, frozen steps through the Tartaruk mountains. As if some deep cavity in the earth were protesting.

  But the sound wasn’t coming from underneath the man’s feet, he knew. It was coming from above him.

  The vibrational murmur appeared to be coming from the Blood Gate as it trembled and shook. Slowly, inch by inch, it started to descend toward the ground.

  “Ouroloxia, Ctul-mar, Hydragk—” The man kept on muttering the torturous words. The Blood Gate above him ever so slightly descended lower and lower. It might take hours yet before it made landfall on the mountain rock. But the half-alive man had time. There was nothing that was going to stop it now.

  Nothing.

  9

  A Familiar Feeling

  Ghrike is fast, Terak thought as the path under his large, bounding claws rose steadily upward. Around them, Terak could see that the forest had changed. There were fewer young trees, and the canopy hundreds of feet above was so thick that it hardly let any light in wh
atsoever.

  “The trees are old here,” Terak murmured, feeling something stir through him that he had never felt before. It was like the feeling of magic that grated his jaw and his teeth, but strangely, it didn’t feel uncomfortable as it always did.

  And there was a feeling in the back of Terak’s mind that was almost like . . .

  Home?

  “Urghk . . .” there was a murmur from beside Terak, and he saw Reticula slump forward, her hands slipping from the hardened plates of muscle and bone that made up the immense forest troll’s neck.

  “Wait!” Terak called out to the great beast underneath him, as he spun from his “seat”—which was in fact the dip between Ghrike’s shoulder joint and neck—grabbing onto one of Ghrike’s antlered horns as he swung himself to the other side of the troll, sliding an arm to catch Reticula before she could tumble backwards.

  “Ghrn-ugh?” Ghrike made a low moaning sound as he loped, slowing to a halt, his chest rising and falling from the exertion as Terak secured Reticula.

  “Ghrn?” the forest troll made another questioning, worried whimper of a sound, which was a sentiment that Terak shared.

  “I know, I know,” the elf muttered, doing his best to examine the human novitiate as best he was able.

  Her eyes were fluttering, and her brow was once again beaded with sweat. Terak could hear the young woman trying to murmur, but her voice was breathy and her words too rapid for him to make out.

  And she’s burning up, the elf thought as he pressed a hand to her cheek. Her skin felt like it contained a bonfire.

  “Ah . . .” Then Terak saw that there were two thin snaking black lines making their way up from the collar of her tunic to her neck. They hadn’t been there just a scant few hours earlier.

  “The poison is spreading. We haven’t got long,” Terak mumbled, not knowing whether the troll would even understand him.

  “Ghrn,” the creature made a groaning sound. Again, the elf could only agree.

  I need to get her those flowers. Now, Terak thought, as he gingerly pulled the salve from his pack and did what he could to slather it wherever he saw more of the Estreek poison spreading. Reticula’s low mumbling subsided somewhat, but her body still radiated heat like a banked fireplace.

  “If I only knew where those Demiene Flowers were, or how they were guarded . . .” Terak sighed, finally looking up to see where they had stopped.

  Oh.

  The forest path had risen up a ridge of deeply wooded land. They now stood atop that rise, looking down into a secluded valley in the heart of the Everdell.

  Which was lit with floating lanterns like muted stars.

  Terak could see buildings down there, circular and tall huts raised on stilts amongst the trees. Walkways stretched through the air from one hut to another and to the largest boughs of the Everdell trees like they were the thoroughfares for this woodland town. Many of the huts appeared to have their stilts and beams formed by living wood, lovingly pruned or trained to form living lattice-works of the walls and rooftops.

  Terak saw the distant movement of tall and thin shapes far below, as the denizens went about their daily tasks.

  They had found the Second Family of Elves.

  The Enclave thief, spy, and assassin deposited Reticula onto the ground just under the top of the ridge that surrounded the Everdell elves. He did his best to explain to Ghrike that he was to wait there with the unconscious novitiate.

  “I’ll be as quick as I can, but you have to watch over Reticula, our friend, while I am gone,” Terak said the words slowly and firmly. The forest troll blinked several times at him, before sitting down with a heavy thump. Ghrike started to pick the glowing toadstools that were all around. He popped them into his flat shovel of a mouth as if they were tasty sweets.

  A little way from the troll, swaddled in her robes between the roots of a massive tree, huddled Reticula. Terak had tried to make her as comfortable as possible. He had even moistened her lips with water before leaving the waterskin in her arms.

  For when she wakes up, Terak convinced himself. When, not if.

  A final glance at Ghrike, who appeared happy enough with his foraged delicacies, and the elf knew that he would have to trust that the forest troll had somehow understood his request.

  When, not if, he thought once more as he crept up to the brow of the ridge, stepping gently between the trees until he could look down into the elvish township below.

  He realized that the vale was actually larger than he had thought it was. The shimmering forest streams brought a pleasing sound to his ears. Once again, Terak felt that strange feeling of nostalgia and yearning in his chest. Resolutely, he forced it down.

  I came here for one task. One task alone, he thought, as he selected his approach. He made his way along the ridge, stepping away from the path that wound down the gentler slope. He stayed where the ridge was steeper, with many boulders and outcrops of cream-gray colored rocks held in shape by the roots of the ancient trees. Thick blankets of green moss topped the boulders and were springy and soft to the touch. He started to pick his way downward.

  There were plenty of nooks and crevices to hunker in. Every time that Terak saw one of the distant figures below turn in his direction, he froze or lowered himself between the boulders and roots, breathing softly as he waited for them to pass.

  The elf could see his fellow kinsmen more clearly now. They were taller than the average human. Terak found himself to be vaguely envious of this, for he wasn’t as tall, willowy, and imposing as these people were.

  They had a mixture of pale and tawny skin types, but their hair was always shiny and looked to be made of a stronger stuff than a human’s. Just like mine. He idly swept an errant strand of his own hair behind his pointed ears.

  The elves of Everdell wore a variety of costumes, too. Everything from deep cloaks that flowed around their forms in grays, blues, reds, or greens, to garb which resembled rare forest insects more than clothing.

  Others of the Second Family, however, wore a mixture of trousers, tunics, and jerkins: serviceable, yet elegant, with none of the bulky straps and buckles that the human attire of the Enclave sported. Instead, they appeared sewn together out of fitted organic shapes, vaguely reminiscent of leaves.

  And there are no guards, Terak realized when he had reached his halfway point. Many of the elves had bows slung across their backs, or long blades strapped to their hips. But Terak couldn’t see any of these folk standing at gates or around bonfires, watching everything move as the Wall Guards of the Black Keep did.

  Are they so sure of themselves? he thought as he clambered and crept toward the base of the rise and into the township itself.

  The stilted huts were higher in the air than Terak had at first thought, interspersed between a few of the largest and presumably oldest of trees. With just a few paths snaking across the forest floor, the elves of Everdell apparently preferred to use the rope walkways and limbs of the trees to travel. The forest floor was left to form patches of almost-meadow: deep matts of the springy moss, studded with stands of forest blooms and the odd grass head. It smelled sweet and enlivening as Terak made his way through it.

  “Galdon? Are you home?” Terak heard a voice call softly from above him. The questioning elf hadn’t seen him yet, but Terak could see their form.

  It was an elf maiden with shining, russet-red hair walking easily along one of the rope walkways to the nearest stilt hut. As she went about her tasks, Terak ghosted between the living supports of the hut and into the shadows. He heard the creak of the maiden’s tread on the floorboards above and the creak of a wooden door.

  Terak breathed shallowly. He waited for the muffled sounds of conversation to strike up above before he moved on. At the far edge of the stilts, he crossed into the darkness under another hut, and another.

  It was overwhelmingly quiet here. Terak saw surprisingly few of the Second Family as he made his way, moving from shadow to shadow deeper into the heart of the township. He pass
ed by some huts which appeared laden with bundles of straight poles with drifts of sawdust at their base. They appeared to be communal work huts of some kind.

  From others came the smell of smoked fish and the crackle of fires above him. At all times he could hear the gentle clatter of wooden wind chimes.

  It’s peaceful here, Terak thought in wonder as he passed by another strange structure on the floor of the forest. It was the second such shape that he had passed close-by, and he had seen a third in the moss-meadows a few huts away. A cairn of cream-and-gray rocks, with one of the floating balls of magical light hanging over its topmost stone. Terak presumed it was either some way of lighting the settlement or some kind of shrine. Each appeared uniquely decorated in its own way with feathers, shining pebbles, or precious oddments.

  And still, Terak saw so few of the Everdell Elves that he wondered if he had been astoundingly lucky. Maybe he had arrived at just the time that most of them were out on a hunt or an expedition.

  The only sound he made came from the gentle sigh of his soft-soled shoes on the meadow grasses. Terak knew that it must be daylight up there somewhere, beyond the interlocking crowns of the trees. The thick canopies created an eternal twilight down here, lit by the rare forest blooms or the floating orbs.

  Like stars, Terak thought, and once again he felt that something familiar that his heart recognized, even if his memories could not.

  His steps had taken him past the work huts and what appeared to be the stile-house dwellings of his people. Instead, he found that he was stepping down into a wide hollow in the center of the Second Family’s township, where an ancient, gnarled, and scaled tree sat.

  This tree was of the same type as all of the others of this part of the forest, but easily over a hundred feet tall. It was fatter and wider than even the Eyrie Tower of the Black Keep. Terak saw where its trunk met the ground and gigantic roots and knots of wood formed low walls, like avenues.