shrugged, though coming from the sorcerer it seemed an obscene gesture, unnatural. The shoulders moving beneath the tattered cloak and robes reminded the belkagen of a dung beetle flexing its carapace.
'It has long been a weakness of mine,' Erun continued. 'I like to play with my prey.' The enchantment broken, Jalan, trembling from cold and terror, tried to scramble back down the steps, but the sorcerer bent and snatched him, quick as a scorpion. He held the boy by the hair and pulled him back. Jalan screamed. 'Jalan, no!' said the belkagen.
'Erun, don't hurt him!' The sorcerer shook the boy until tears leaked out of Jalan's terror-stricken eyes and froze on his cheeks. 'Erun?' said the sorcerer. 'That is not my name. I merely wear that boy's skin. What was Erun has been sleeping for a long time-and having most unpleasant dreams. Oh, how the boy screams.'
Amira stood on the black, ice-slick rocks of the shore, looking across the water to the island. Staring into the storm, snow and sleet stinging her face, she could just make out five figures standing beneath an old, long-dead tree. The wind off the Great Ice Sea tossed their cloaks, but through the waving fabric she was sure she saw Jalan. She clenched her fist and punched her hip in frustration. The great pinnacle of rock was several hundred paces offshore, but it might as well have been a league. She'd tried again and again to use her magic to transport her out there, but something was blocking her spell. The core of her mind could feel the power hammering against some unseen barrier, and nothing she tried could break through. Even if the water hadn't been broken by tall white- capped waves, the temperature itself would've made swimming impossible. She'd freeze before she got halfway, assuming she didn't drown. She turned to the elf who had accompanied her to the shore. It was Turha, one of the female omah from last night's council. 'Is there any way out there?'
Amira asked. 'Boats? Anything?' Turha shook her head. 'Nothing. In summer, one must swim. In winter, we walk the ice. Now…' Two other Vil Adanrath, one coated in blood, were coming toward them, three wolves at their heels. The bloody one had a bow. 'You!' Amira shouted.
She pointed to the figures on the island. 'Can you hit them from here?' The elf looked at the target. 'Not in this wind. Even if I could, my arrows would not stop th-' 'Damn you all!' Amira shouted.
'Does no one have anything useful to say?' Desperate, Amira peeled her gloves off with her teeth, dropped them, and began to work at the knot of her cloak. 'Lady,' said Turha, 'what are you-?' Tears were filling Amira's eyes. 'If I take off most of these damned clothes and the boots, maybe I can make it.' 'The cold will kill you,' said Turha.
'Even the Vil Adanrath would not attempt this.' 'I'm not one of the damned Vil Ad-' A great commotion behind them cut her off. Elves shouting and wolves growling. Amira turned, fearing that more Frost Folk or winter wolves had found them. Three elves, their wolves milling about, were trying to restrain a huge figure, covered head to heels in thick, dark blood so that his eyes shone bright from his feral visage. The elves were armed, and their shouts and enraged faces showed their fury, but they did not attack the figure. They seemed to be trying to restrain him and were cursing him in their native tongue.
But they were unable to slow him. Amira's hammering heart skipped a beat and she held her breath, for as the figure drew close she recognized him. It was Gyaidun, his shirt hanging off him in tatters, his pants ripped, his hair unbound and sticky with blood, his iron club in one hand and his knife bare in the other, both thick with gore. From the scratches and cuts lining his torso, Amira knew that at least some of the blood was his. He stopped before her, panting, and the stench hit her-the salty tang of blood, the acidic bite of darker heart's blood, and wafting through it all the scent of spring blossoms. The smell caused a memory to hit her like a club:
Hro'nyewachu. No other odor matched it-the stench of death and the fragrance of new life. Amira blinked. 'Gyaidun? How…? What hap-?'
Turha looked as if she were ready to stab Gyaidun with her spear, and three of the surrounding elves grabbed at his arms and tried to drag him away, one of them shouting, 'Hrayek! You have no place here!'
'Stop!' Amira shouted. 'Let him be! Gyaidun how did you get h-?' 'He is hrayek!' said Turha. 'He cannot be in our presence!' Amira glared at the lady omah. 'Then leave, damn you.' Turha turned to the Vil Adanrath warriors and said, 'Get him out of here. Drag him if you must.' But Gyaidun held them off with his knife and club. 'No time!' he said. 'That bastard out there has some sort of link with Jalan. He knows everything you've planned.' This renewed Amira's panic, and she finally managed to tear loose the knot of her cloak and throw it to the ground. 'What are you doing?' Gyaidun said. 'I have to get out there!' 'Swimming? You'll never make it. The cold will kill you.'
'What choice do I have?' 'Your magic,' he said. 'It brought you here last night. Use it to get us out there.' 'Us? But Erun-' 'I know how to stop this!' he said. 'But I have to get out there before it's too late.' The words of the oracle came back to her. She hadn't heard them, had been lost in some dark dream forced on her by the oracle.
But the belkagen had asked the oracle, face to face, if the staff she'd given would save Jalan, and she had replied, No. That task is for another. Hope and despair tore at her heart. 'Amira!' Gyaidun said. 'Get us out there. Now!' 'I can't!' she shrieked. 'Don't you think I've tried? Something is blocking the magic. Some counterspell-'
'Can you get us above it-out of range?' asked Gyaidun. 'In the water?
But… the cold. You said-' 'Not the water!' He pointed to the sky above the distant island. 'The air!' 'The fall will kill us!' 'You're a wizard, aren't you?'
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Isle of Witness
Lendri was still down. Not dead, but in such agony he could scarcely move. The belkagen looked up to the pinnacle where the five sorcerers stood beneath the Witness Tree. The old elf's hands trembled, and his knees felt weak. The burden he had carried down the long years, the knowledge no living being should ever have, had come to him at last. Here it was. The fear hit him as it always did when he recalled the vision of Hro'nyewachu, but this time he did not let it weaken him. The fulfillment of his vision, the consummation of his mission, was here. The final reward. But as he'd told Hro'nyewachu, it could come only through pain. 'As are all things worth having,' he said, remembering her words. 'So be it.' The belkagen raised his staff, knowing the futility of what he was about to do. But instead of letting it weaken him, he accepted the knowledge and embraced it.
Knowing the ending-or at least part of it-was oddly liberating.
'Jalan!' he shouted. 'Hold on to something!' The five sorcerers looked down upon him, and two of them began to weave their hands in their own summoning, but the belkagen was quicker. He raised his staff and said,
'U werekh kye wu!' The galeforce wind at his back switched directions and hit him from the left with a force beyond any hurricane. Waves broke against the side of the island, and the great mist tossed upward froze to ice and shot across the island like millions of tiny arrows.
The wind caught in the cloaks and robes of the five sorcerers and they tumbled off the pinnacle. Four splashed into the water while Erun clung to the rocks like a barnacle. The wind died off, then resumed its normal course. The belkagen spared a glance upward to make sure Jalan was unharmed. The boy clung to the twisted roots of the Witness Tree and looked down on him with wide eyes. Sweeping his staff down toward the water, the belkagen said, 'Kaharenharik ket!' Five bolts of lightning cracked the sky and hit the water. For the belkagen, all sound ceased and the world went white. His hair stood on end and flickers of blue electric light danced around his outstretched arms.
Sound returned to the world as a great clap of thunder rattled the sky and shook the rocks beneath his feet. The belkagen blinked, and when his eyes opened he saw Erun scrambling up the rocks like a spider, but upon reaching a small outcropping he jumped into the wind, which caught in his robes, causing them to billow like a great bat. He flew into the air and landed on the stone stairway halfway between the belkagen and Jalan. A great cracking hit the belkagen's ears, and his first thought was that the rock had been split by the lightning, but then he saw the ice. The very waters of Yal Tengri were freezing in a column at the base of the island, and riding atop it were the other four sorcerers. The robes and cloaks were sodden, and the belkagen could see bits of flesh hanging off the hands of the nearest, but they otherwise seemed unharmed. The column of ice twisted and turned at the
