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

  “Ach!” The elf had to clamber up the back of the nearest creature, grabbing handfuls of the mossy stuff to avoid being crushed in the feeding frenzy. In an instant, the air was filled with tiny, dismayed squeals as the imp-creatures tried to avoid their hunters, but did not have the strength or speed necessary.

  The mound underneath Terak shifted, and was bashed by a neighbor, making the elf wobble and stumble for balance. I have to get out of here before they think I’m dinner, too! The elf saw his destination: the meadow ended in a line of great, dark trees. Each one was taller even than the trees of the Everdell Forest back home, but much thinner. Their bark was a deep midnight black, veined with something that glittered like quartz.

  The Crystal Forest! It has to be! Terak leapt onto the back of the next moss-tortoise, and then the next and the next. He leapfrogged his way through clouds of the massacred imp-things as the creature beneath him feasted with an obvious and obscene delight. He almost slipped on the damp moss and fell between the crashing hides of moss and bone several times. Eventually he made it to the edge of the frenzied ground and bounded into the shadows under the eaves.

  “Dear Stars!” Terak panted, breathing heavily as he slumped against the black-and-silver bark of the nearest tree. The sounds of screaming and hungry clacking drifted across to meet him.

  If the elf had been given the impression by Mother Istarion that the realm of the Aesther would be a noble and peaceful place, it was shattered now.

  The Aesther looks just as bloodthirsty as anywhere else, he thought grimly. He pushed himself to his feet and started to pick his way between the alien trees.

  13

  A Line Against the Darkness

  Mother Istarion opened her eyes. She was lying on the polished wooden floor of the ritual room and was staring at a pair of tanned green-leather forest-boots.

  “Lord Alathaer,” the elf woman groaned, awakening every ache and pain that rippled through her body. She felt frail and weak—as if every one of her hundred and sixty-eight years represented an iron chain wrapped around her body.

  Mother Istarion had been many things in life, and she had lived through many terrible events, but it was only rarely that she ever let herself feel as completely crushed as she did now.

  “Mother Istarion. What did . . . you didn’t . . . you did.” The Lord Alathaer sounded annoyed, which was nothing new, the Mother knew, for the Captain of the Brilliant Host. In all of the hundred and twenty-odd years that she had known him, elfling, youth, and adult, he had always had a scowl on his face as if the very world itself insulted him.

  Maybe it does, she thought a little woozily. Right now, given how she felt and what they were facing, there was no way to deny that the world could be a cruel place.

  Istarion felt the strong hands of the younger lord lift her up, firmly but also gently. He moved her to a three-legged wooden chair with a low back. It had been fashioned through tree-singing by a beloved nephew of hers.

  I wonder whatever happened to Gelda, she thought idly, holding a hand to her thumping temples as Alathaer moved to fetch water and the supplies that would revive the ailing Mother.

  Oh yes. Killed by an orc warband, thirty-five winters ago, she remembered. She heard Alathaer mutter a powerful healing incantation over the water, before he pressed the simple wooden cup into her hands.

  “Sip,” he said seriously, and Istarion gave him a weary, faint smile.

  “I think that I know how to heal myself, Alathaer,” she said dryly. But she was still grateful when she drank the enchanted water, feeling its freshness spread down through her body like the first rains of autumn.

  “I know you do, but I’m not even sure that you would be capable of healing yourself right now,” Alathaer said grimly. He turned to survey the ritual circle of crushed sands from a sacred lake, gathered when both moons were high in the sky and mixed with the pulverized bones of dragons. It was an expensive business, creating a circle between the worlds.

  Clearly, Lord Alathaer was highly displeased by it.

  “I take it that you sent him into the rift between the worlds?” he said heavily.

  Mother Istarion’s temples still ached from the effort. It had taken every ounce of her determination to steer the elf away from the Ungol and out, much further, to the strange world of the Aesther.

  Like throwing a feather through a snowstorm. Mother Istarion remembered the words of her own biological mother, as well as the ritual Mother to the Second Family before her. Her Mother, Hadaeth, had been small, and warm, but was someone who had seen the fall of the Sorcerer-Kings. She knew well the costs of magic—both the moral costs as well as the physical ones which Istarion felt now.

  “In times past, I would have had a sisterhood of fellow Mothers to perform that Circle,” Istarion said with a touch of pride.

  “Another reason why you should never have attempted it,” Lord Alathaer sounded more tired than he did angry. Although disappointed is probably a better word for it, Istarion considered.

  “I thank you for your interest in my health, Lord Alathaer, but I do not have to remind you that it is mine to give,” Istarion said. She took a deep breath and drew some of her old dignity and power to her.

  “But the safety of the Second Family is mine to protect, Mother!” the lord said with a burst of exasperation. He didn’t turn around, but kept staring at the Circle, as if hating everything about it. “If you had failed, then we would right now be facing a horde of creatures from . . . that realm right here, in the heart of the township! Creatures that my Brilliant Host would have to deal with!”

  “There was no danger of that,” Mother Istarion said. And although she was very old and very wise, a very small part of her wondered if she was also speaking the truth.

  “I will have to take your word for that,” Alathaer muttered, a remark which made Istarion’s lips pull back in a cat-like hiss.

  “And might I remind you, Lord Alathaer, that while you are in charge of every martial defense of the Second Family, I am in charge of the spiritual and magical. If I choose to open a circle, then I am well in my rights to do it!” she said sharply.

  Lord Alathaer looked about to say something, but then just nodded his head instead. Some traditions were too unshakeable and too deep for even the Captain of the Brilliant Host to question.

  “Either way, I have sent word to the Fourth and Fifth Families—although I cannot guarantee that they will believe me . . .” Alathaer finally turned from regarding the Circle and shook his head.

  “They will have seen the signs. They know that the time of darkness is almost upon us,” Istarion said, as her eyes flickered to the windows. They were a colored glass anyway, making everything appear green or pastel-blue, but she thought that she could detect a certain gloom to the quality of the light.

  It won’t be long now. Istarion pushed herself to her feet.

  “The kingdom of Brecha?” She asked, referring to the nearest human nation. It sat at the top of the world, underneath the Tartaruk Mountains and adjacent to the southern edges of Everdell Forest.

  “A shambles,” Alathaer said dismissively. “They have a new human lord, one Falan Brecha, son to the old Lord General. The boy is untested and untried and is still trying to rebuild his capital from the Ixcht infiltration.” The elf lord at last gave a sign of his weariness by rubbing a smooth hand over his features. “He does not have the forces or the strength required to hold the line.”

  “He has the only air galleon in the north,” Mother Istarion noted. “And you might be surprised at the strength that is unsought for, but arises out of necessity.”

  Alathaer looked at the spiritual mother of the Second Family with heavy-lidded eyes. “An unsought strength is not something that I can count on, Istarion.”

  “Then consider this,” Istarion countered. “You and I, we were born in the wreckage of that previous great war. We know of its horrors. That is the shadow that has hung over us, every day of our lives—”

  “Whi
ch is why it is up to us, the elder kin of the world, to stand together while the younger races run around with their petty wars and intrigues!” Alathaer pointed out, but Istarion over-rode him, continuing.

  “—which is admirable and noble, Captain. But you shouldn’t underestimate the fact that these younger races—this Lord Falan and Terak—weren’t born into this catastrophe. They will be born for it and will adapt to it in ways which we cannot foresee,” Istarion said.

  Alathaer was silent for a moment, before shrugging. “I hope that you are right. Have you thought about the other thing—the Sixth Family?” he asked seriously.

  “Absolutely not,” Istarion said, with a hint of thunder and steel to her voice. It wasn’t that the Sixth Family were considered the most removed, or the strangest and smallest of all of the Great Elvish Families, although that was all true. It was the fact that Alathaer had suggested that she and her trainee Sisters dispatch themselves to the distant shores and islands where the Sixth Family lived, far to the south of the world.

  “The Gate will open any day, any moon, any hour—” Alathaer pointed out.

  “And when it does, it will find me here where I belong!” Istarion said hotly. “In the township where I was born! In the forest which has nurtured me and provided for me every day of my life! This forest is my life-blood. It is my soul—and I, Mother Istarion, will not be one to flee like a whipped dog to some shelter, as the world burns behind her!”

  Alathaer stared at her openly and frankly, and Istarion could see that he was assessing her determination and strength. A part of her winced, knowing what she was also asking of him. Of course, she had told every member of the Second Family that they could leave should they want to—any time that they wanted to—but none had.

  The Second Family are a proud family. Istarion once again remembered one of Mother Hadaeth’s sayings. Alathaer and the others would stay here to hold the line against the Ungol, and with her here too. No elf would ever flee the battlefield or seek refuge.

  “I respect that,” Alathaer said with a slow nod. “Then I guess that we had better prepare as best we are able. I have weapons training around the clock, in shifts of twelve—” he was busy saying, just as the Mother Tree of the township in which they stood trembled, just slightly.

  Both elves froze. They could feel something shivering through the bark of this great plant that had stood for them and protected them for so long.

  “She is upset . . .” Mother Istarion crossed to place a bare hand on the living wood of the wall, to feel the unease that stretched through the ancient tree, from root to leaf—

  And then all the muted and pastel lights of the different windows suddenly blinked out, replaced by black.

  14

  The Crystal Forest

  As soon as Terak stepped beyond the outer eaves of the forest, the trees he saw about him changed. The tall and thin black-and-crystal veined columns becoming mixed with shorter, fatter trees, but still veined with the shimmering white lines of rock that appeared to pulse with their own rhythm.

  Like heartbeats, the elf thought. Terak stepped up to the nearest one, gingerly pressing his gloved hands to the line of light—

  To feel a buzz as the glow spread up through the tree, then descended again, then rose, slightly quicker this time.

  “Interesting.” Terak moved to the next tree and did the same thing, driven by a curiosity borne of living a night-time life behind stern black walls. The magic that he had seen at the Enclave always had a purpose—battle or healing, sensing or defense—and was used sparingly.

  It also always made me feel unwell, he reflected. But the magic of this place had no such effect on him. It reminded him more of the Everdell township of the elves somehow.

  Pulse. Terak had forgotten that he still stood with his hand against the back of the next tree, and the buzz that shot through his hand this time was powerful and insistent. Hurriedly, he took his hand from its surface to step back. The pulse of light only quickened, its glow spilling from the bark like a lantern moving up and down behind a thin curtain.

  It was much, much stronger than before, Terak saw. And it appeared to only be getting faster and stronger.

  Ah. Terak had the sudden premonition that he shouldn’t have done that, as he saw that all of the trees in his near vicinity were pulsing faster and stronger now, too.

  Like a warning, he thought, as he saw the ripple of light spread out through the forest and into the gloom.

  Terak got the immediate sensation that he really didn’t want to be here if that was a message, and that message was received by someone—or something—else.

  The elf moved between the boughs and trunks, picking up his feet faster as he started to jog . . .

  The light’s following me! Terak thought in alarm as his feet quickened. He had no idea where he was going, only that he had to try and get away from the source of the crystal warning.

  But it was as if the trees were prepared to meet his approach. Every trunk that he passed suddenly flared with an incandescent light from its crystal veins. Terak was moving through ever brighter ripples of light that changed direction when he did, and grew brighter and quicker around him every time that he paused.

  Ssss. And then Terak heard a sound approaching through the twilight gloom of the trees—a hissing, like the approach of a thousand bees—

  No-no-no . . . Terak drew his short sword as he ran. This time he altered his path to zigzag this way and that, all the time with the flaring light of the crystal warning around him.

  Mother Istarion warned me. A very unhelpful thought hit him, just as something descended out of the branches and trees, blocking his path.

  It was a cloud. But it was a cloud made up of what appeared to be hundreds of smaller bodies.

  Like the imps? He thought for an instant. These bodies too, glowed with their own inner light, but they did not appear to flutter and float on gossamer wings. Instead, these creatures rushed forward with faster, furious antennae like insects—like bees or wasps.

  And then the cloud seemed to morph together, coagulating into one shimmering, giant being. It had no legs but instead, four apparent “arms” and one bulbous mass of a buzzing, hissing head.

  Terak saw a gap appear in the center of the thing’s head. It looked awfully like a roaring mouth as the conglomerate creature barreled toward him.

  Ixcht! Terak swore as he threw himself behind the trunk of the nearest tree. He felt the thuds and tremors as the creatures hit the far side and saw the streaming glow of its body as it fragmented on either side of him. It rushed past as a cloud of smaller imp-beings once again, before turning and re-coagulating into its fearsome monster.

  Terak gasped and ran.

  How am I going to defeat a thing like that! His Enclave training was useless now. he could see no weakness that the thing might have. He could see no precious internal organs or essential bones. If it had eyes to blind, then it had a thousand of them. Suddenly Terak’s short sword felt very useless indeed in his hands.

  Ssss! The buzzing sound only grew louder as the flying, writhing creature gained on him. Terak changed course, jumping to one side. His feet sliding through leaflitter and moss as he tried to regain his balance.

  The cloud-creature hissed past where he had been, spinning around as it, too, slowed. Terak saw it throw one of its limbs toward him, the hand opening like a petal and flinging a ball of its aggregate imp-stuff at him like a missile.

  “Gragh!” Terak, on instinct, swiped his sword in front of him and through the cloud of creatures. He heard tiny hisses and shrieks of agony as he carved easily through their small bodies and scattered the rest of the living projectile into a shower of glowing forms, which hit him in a spray.

  “Ach!” Instantly, Terak felt pain as some of the tiny bodies separated from their mother-being latched onto his clothes with miniature claws and darted their heads—shaped like beaks—at his flesh.

  It was like being bitten and stung by insects, but a lot of
them all at the same time. Terak stumbled into a run, batting at the tiny creatures that clutched at his arms or tried to climb and worm their way under his collar.

  “Get off me!” He yelled, as he shook his head and dislodged the last from the front of his body. He could still feel the tiny claws of more clambering through his hair toward his scalp, but right now he was more concerned with the hissing roar of the mother-monster as it flew at him.

  Once again, Terak spun at the last moment to put one of the fat-trunked trees between him and it in the moments before the thing struck and enveloped him. And once again, he felt the shudder of a hundred tiny bodies hit the far side of the trunk as the creature disassembled into streaming billows of clouds on either side.

  Terak broke from the tree and ran crazily through the forest. How can I beat this thing!? he wondered, as two tiny arms, jointed like a spider’s and ending in sharp talons, appeared over his eyeline.

  “Aii!” Terak screamed more in revulsion than fear, as he batted the imp-thing away with the back of his gloved hand.

  His gloved hand that had the Choke-Powder hidden in its hem.

  Terak didn’t think that it could be enough, but he had no other alternative as he tore the packet and the loose thread that held it in place. He careened this way and that through the forest, tearing its edge and spinning in place to fling it behind him, straight at the onrushing beast—

  The packet spun end over end, spilling its plume of powder behind it in a fine spray of peppers and capsicums and crushed rock glass that Father Jacques had devised. It was a horrible, nasty little concoction that could irritate, seriously maim, and even kill in the right concentrations.

  The powder hit the roaring head of the aggregate-beast and exploded open. Instantly, the creature convulsed its many hundreds of forms and lost its shape for a moment, shivering and rolling around the irritating powder. Terrible squeals like injured birds rippled through its body as handfuls of the smaller imp-things fell, gasping and dying to the forest floor.