“No!” Soen whispered as loudly as he dared. “Jukung, stop!”
Whether the Assesia heard him or not, Jukung continued forward, intent on garnering his prize and honor to his name. The Matei staff shifted in his hands. Jukung stopped just short of the line and pointed toward the crest of the ridge on the other side of the pool.
Soen turned and gaped. Two robed figures-Qin and Phang-rose up along the crest on the far side of the pool and began moving toward the rock face, their own Matei staffs swinging unnaturally before them-as though they were marionettes whose strings were being badly pulled.
“NO!” Soen shouted, springing out from behind the boulder, running toward Jukung.
The bolters at the edge of the pool leaped back in alarm. The human woman screamed, her shrill voice echoing off the rocks of the cascade.
Jukung leaped toward his prey, his Matei staff thrust in front of him, its crystal flaring with power. “By the Will of the Emperor, I command you to. .”
Jukung stepped across the line before Soen could reach him.
The waters of the river exploded upward with a crashing like ocean waves, but the water did not fall back into the riverbed; instead, it shifted and broke into hands, arms, fingers, and bodies. Hair of froth cascaded off of heads of incredible beauty whose transparency gelled more solidly by the moment.
Jukung stepped back, turning toward the monstrous multitude rising from the water at his side. The Matei stick flared, pulsing in waves at the onrushing tide of horror. The figures were battered by its force, twisted, wrenched, and shattered, only to re-form.
Soen stopped at the edge of the patterned line, his own Matei staff held uselessly in front of him.
The bolters backed away into the pool. They, too, could see the robes of the Codexia on either side of the waterfall’s crest. The human male held his sword at the ready, but even from here Soen could sense the panic of the surrounded and cornered prey.
Soen opened his mouth and raged in anger, his howl tearing through the air around the pool. There was nothing he could do. Too late he had seen the faery line-the pattern in the ground demarking the unquestioned realm of the fae and their power. Murialis had been busy on the frontier and had claimed more land than the Emperor had taken notice of.
Jukung screamed. The water nymphs had reached him at last, tearing the Matei staff from his hands. They pulled him over the pool, clawing at his robes, his hair, his flesh. They twisted him back and forth as though he were being tossed upon the waves of some unseen storm at sea.
The Assesia tumbled through the air. Tossed by the water nymphs, he slammed back-first against the ragged stones that formed the wall of the ravine. His body fell heavily to the ground. Jukung lay screaming incoherently just at the edge of the faery line.
For a moment, Soen moved to stretch his own Matei staff in to where Jukung lay but, cursing, stopped himself. The faery line would almost certainly discharge his staff the moment he pushed it across the line just as it had rendered Jukung’s staff useless.
Soen gazed down at the screaming Assesia. He could see terrible welts ballooning on Jukung’s tortured face: acid burns from the touch of the angered nymphs. Unchecked, it would literally melt the face from the Iblisi.
Soen frantically looked about him and then saw it: a thick branch jutting out from the tree growing at the upper edge of the ravine. At once, he pointed his Matei staff upward and uttered the words. A column of brilliant light flared upward, severing the branch. It crashed downward, nearly knocking the Inquisitor off his feet.
The nymphs had regrouped in the water and were surging again toward where Jukung lay.
Soen wrapped his arms around the thick branch, thrusting it past the faery line as he yelled. “Jukung! Take it! Hold on!”
The Assesia felt the hands of the nymphs wrap around his feet and ankles. His hands flailed in panic, falling on the branch and gripping it fiercely.
Soen braced his feet where he squatted and then in a single motion used his legs to push away from the faery line, applying all the strength he had to pull Jukung free.
The nymphs were not prepared. Their prey slipped from their grasp in a single lurch, tumbling back over the faery line and falling atop the now prone Inquisitor. Soen rolled the elf off of him, the cloying smell of sizzling flesh filling his nostrils. He quickly picked up his staff and pointed it at the Assesia.
The agonized Iblisi fell with sudden silence into a deep and gratefully dreamless sleep.
Soen lowered his staff and stood upright just short of the faery line, turning to stare at the man he knew was called Drakis.
The human stared back at the elven Inquisitor as he crouched uncertainly with his sword in hand and a human woman behind him.
At the top of the falls, the bodies of Qinsei and Phang tumbled forward, rebounding off the stone face of the falls before falling among the wet rocks. Neither moved. Soen had no doubt that they had been dead since before he arrived at the pool.
The manticore and the chimerian fled first up the far slope. The two women followed them, urged on at last by the dwarf as all disappeared among the dark trees of the Murialis Woods. Only the tall manticore remained, pulling at the human to follow.
“Drakis,” Soen called as cold and still as death. “Wait.”
The human stopped in shock and turned.
Soen spoke in a calm voice that carried across the waters.
“Do you still hear the song. . the song in your mind?” the elf asked casually.
Drakis blinked. “How did you know?”
But then the tall manticore pulled forcefully at the human, and they both fled into the woods.
Soen, standing at the edge of the faery realm, took in a deep breath under his dark glare, turned, and picked up the tortured form of the Assesia called Jukung and made his way back down the stream.
CHAPTER 25
Ruukag slid to a stop, his wide feet skidding across the rotting leaves that blanketed the forest floor. He fell at once into a crouch, his head swiveling quickly around as his wide eyes tried desperately to pierce the mist-laden spaces between the vertical tree trunks surrounding him like bars. The manticore could not take in enough air, could not rein in his fear. Panic circled around him like a predator that he could not see or smell but knew was waiting to pounce upon him if given the slightest opportunity.
RuuKag bared his fangs, growling at his own panic even as he shivered. He wanted to go back; was desperate to go back to the blissfully forgetful life that had been his comfort and his redemption.
Now he was alone, and he hated that more than anything. He had fled into the woods along with the others, but somehow they had all gotten separated in the mists. He knew that he should call out to them, find the reassuring sound of their voices regardless of who it was, and find some comfort in numbers, but he feared that the circling panic would hear his call and take him down under its terrible darkness.
A bush shook behind him. RuuKag spun about.
Another manticore stood before him, his wide paws open and extended out to the side.
RuuKag relaxed slightly.
“I couldn’t find you,” Belag said, his voice a low rumble among the trees. “Are you injured?”
“No. . no thanks to that
Belag raised his furry chin, his feline face looking slowly about. “The Murialis Woods. . a magical forest and a dangerous one by all accounts. It is not wise for us to be alone. Follow me and I’ll take you to the others.”
“We should leave them,” RuuKag sneered. “They are unworthy of us.”
