Annwn’s history. She was a truthseeker: armed with the full truth, she would have the skill to wield it properly. Until then, it had the advantage.
It twisted in her hands like a living thing, patterns writhing and scratching. She whispered “No,” and though the sound was soft, it was filled with determination. She could quell the staff, if not use it; that would be enough, for now. Finally it went quiet, no longer struggling against her. Lara lowered her head, shoulders slumped under the weight of its magic and the more prosaic weight of her backpack.
There were still trials to pass, trials she had no proper concept of, and the two people she’d relied on were gone. Ioan was, she hoped, safe, but Aerin was either lost in the dark side of the drowned city or dead. And Dafydd lay somewhere in the Hundreds, hopefully healing from the magic-draining experiences on Earth, but just as possibly all but dead himself.
Tendrils of miserable certainty accompanied the last thought until Lara hunched over the staff, despair greater than the weight of magic or supplies. Her hopes of having passed through the citadel’s most dangerous gauntlet had been shattered with the chimera’s attack. It was a matter of time before she faced something she simply couldn’t escape.
Warmth crept from the staff, as subtle and encroaching as her misery. Lara laughed, sharp and bitter. The staff could see her through, and the cost would be less than her life. She had no chance of helping Annwn if she didn’t survive the Drowned Lands, and so, perhaps, had no choice.
Discord chimed through the last thoughts, a familiar warning. Lara opened her eyes, staring beyond the staff at the sand-littered tower floor. “Merrick tried that on me.” Her voice was hoarse and she coughed, then swallowed. “It almost worked, then. Trying to convince me that something I wanted to be true, was. Fool me once, shame on me.”
The temptation to use the staff as a walking stick touched her, encouragement to plant it against the floor and push herself to her feet. Lara made another bitter sound and climbed up on her own, shoving the weapon into its straps across her back. Impotent anger rushed from it, then settled, as if it trusted there would be a better time to test her again.
Alone and weary, but blessedly free from the staff’s influence, Lara tried to form a plan. She didn’t know enough of elfin architecture, whether there might be a hospital or holy place that would serve as a healing center somewhere within the city boundaries. At home, important buildings were traditionally located on hills, the better to dominate and inspire, but the towers themselves were the city’s highest structures.
Which meant they were the best chance she had for looking down and potentially locating any remnant sites where Dafydd and Hafgan might be resting. Not that she expected anything to be recognizable, not after so much decay, but it was a course of action, better than nothing. She left the chimera’s messy remains behind, pressing her fingertips against the wall as she made her way around the tower’s half-lit walls. The black light continued to glow—hard on the eyes, but it offered hints of how the tower and its passages had once looked. She ignored a hallway for a ruined door, the frame filled entirely by light. Sweeping carvings, perhaps echoes of the door that had stood there millennia before, had weight and presence. Lara put her weight against the light, moving it inward a few inches. Her imagination added the creak of ancient wood, but the sediment and fallen stone that stopped the door’s movement were real enough. She could get a thigh through, but not her torso. Not with the backpack on, at any rate. She peered through the crack at ruined stairs, supported by pillars and struts of light rather than stone, then twisted to gaze upward, trying to see how far they went. Wavering black-light shadows offered visibility to a few dozen feet. Lara muttered, then tried squeezing through again, half convinced that if she removed the pack, something would appear on one side of the door or the other to snatch it away and deprive her of all supplies while she slipped through.
Given the chimera’s interest in her flesh, why a hypothetical thief would steal the pack was a question worth considering. The idea that the pack would go unscathed while she was attacked was hardly reassuring, but the black humor was welcome. Lara slipped the pack off, keeping it tight in one fist as she wedged herself through the crack. The stone that had supported the stairs was hip-high on the door’s far side, making room to force the door open only because of a still-sturdy ledge well above her head. Nerves jumped in her stomach and Lara turned back to tug at her pack, which compressed less easily than she had. She sat down in piles of stone, trying to shove the door a few inches further open with her legs. It grated, sounding very real for all its translucency, then gave suddenly.
“You’ve done well, Truthseeker, and yet you should not be here.” Llyr’s voice came from above her. Lara yanked her pack to her chest and jerked around to see him on the rubble above her, one hand against the door she’d been trying to move. He released it and another scrape sounded as it eased back into place. “Your companion chose foolishly. Why did you follow her, when you knew better?”
“What else could I do?” Lara asked, astonished. “I don’t know how I’m going to find her or Dafydd or Hafgan, but I couldn’t just let her go, could I? That wouldn’t be very … heroic.” The word came awkwardly, but she didn’t have a better one, not when it had been made clear that even Aerin regarded her journey as a sort of hero’s quest.
Remote humor flickered across the sea god’s face. He looked hollower in the black light, less robust and powerful than he’d been, though his hand was steady and strong as he offered it to Lara. His grip was oddly soft as he pulled her to her feet, as if the water of which he was made was nothing more than that, uncontained by a wrapper of skin. “A decision worthy of a trial itself, though not one set before you. I can offer guidance now that you’ve passed them, though little else, I’m afraid.” He turned to climb the stairs, leaving Lara at their foot, staring after him dumbfounded.
“Now that I’ve what?”
He tossed a mild look over his shoulder and Lara scrambled after him, swinging her pack on as she ran up the stairs. “I’m sorry, but … what? I didn’t pass any trials.”
“Compassion, cleverness, confrontation. A trial is not much of a challenge, Truthseeker, if it is announced before it proceeds. Anyone might make a wise decision when they know it is part of a test.”
Lara stopped again, bewildered, and after a step or two more, so did Llyr, who lifted a hand and counted off on his fingers. “Compassion. You might have fought the armies of the dead, but instead you embraced them, learned their stories, and swore an oath to return them to the memories of the living. Not even Rhiannon’s children have shown such empathy when they’ve traveled to the Drowned Lands. Then cleverness, for you outwitted the twins, even if you did then choose the dark door. And in confrontation you not only defeated the dread beast, but far more important, you mastered the staff.”
“Those weren’t—I didn’t know they were trials.”
“As I said, what use is a trial when you know that you face it? It is what you do when you believe yourself to be alone that truly matters.”
Embarrassment flooded Lara and she looked at her feet. “Those were … the doors, that’s an old riddle from home. It could never fool me. And the army …” She wanted to say
“Almost. But you triumphed, and I think perhaps you have also learned from the experience. Do not use it again in these lands, Lara Jansen. I fear a third time will be your undoing.”
Sweet music bubbled through his voice, tempered by something deeper and more sorrowful. Lara looked up, and he turned back from the step above, tall and alien and lovely. “And I fear it will be ours,” he finished at the silent question in her eyes. “The Drowned Lands tremble with its power, but my realm is vast enough. I have no wish to see the mountains clearly, Truthseeker. To me, they are beautiful in their distance. Come. From the tower roofs I may show you the path your companion has taken, and guide you to where your lover lies at rest in the heart of my sea.”
Thirteen
From above the city became an intricate piece of knotwork, streets sweeping in cross-patterned loops. Degradation had taken hold too thoroughly for Lara to pick out the image for certain, but she saw hints in the longer lines and curves that suggested a leaping fish as the city’s layout. It made her wonder what forest animal the Seelie
