rained down from the eating. Uthalion braced himself, ready to bolt for the door; but the structure held, groaning with settling noises that darkly complemented the grim weather.
He paused at the sight of a dusty chair in the common room, its cushions moldy and sagging with age. Khault had once sat there, leaning forward and insisting he help the strange warriors he’d welcomed into his home. As stubborn as he was brave, he had refused to take no for an answer, and had immediately set about warning the rest of the town to take shelter. His wife had fretted in the kitchen, gathering food for the hungry soldiers in the last of the day’s light and forcing them to eat what she could spare.
A part of Uthalion smiled at the memory, but his face would not show it as he passed through the common room and into the kitchen. He imagined the strong woman as she’d been as the black clouds had overtaken Caidrisand not as she’d been in the days after, prepared for her grave by a stoic husband.
The images were clear and haunting, as though time had stopped that day. But Uthalion felt he knew better, knew the malleable and inconstant nature of time. He placed his hand on the kitchen table, dusty and still standing, and did not measure the years that had passed so much as he bore witness to a ravaging sense of the present.
Slowly and with held breath he looked up, turning to face the dark place just east of the kitchen, at the end of a short hallway. The simple door remained, marked by deep gouges, stained by life and old blood. He wondered briefly if it had ever opened again after the day he’d closed it behind him and put Caidris to his back. Lightning lit its surface, much as it had the first time he’d opened it.
It stood waiting for him, like a hope chest buried in the back of a closet, a box full of memories and years of nightmares. The silver ring was heavy on his hand, its magic having shielded him from dreams of Caidris for so long. There was no waking up this time. Shaking free of hesitation, he crossed the kitchen floor and gripped the door handle tightly, daring himself to throw it open and face the dark where he and his men had hid for three days and nights as the sorcerous rage of a dying aboleth had played itself out.
He stared down into the basement, listening and watching for any sign of Ghaelya in the dark below. Placing his sword in front of him he took one step, then another, forcing himself to return and wondering if he’d ever truly left. Dust and shadows enveloped him in the stairway, occasionally lit by flickering lightning, the old handrail shaken by rumbling thunder.
He paused, feeling the wall and finding the short nub of an old candle still in its rusty sconce. Fumbling in the dark he managed to ignite a tindertwig and light the taper’s wick before continuing his descent. A heavy scent of rust grew stronger as he neared the bottom, the smell reminding him of his grandfather’s basement and his childhood fear of being alone in the place.
The sound of dripping water echoed faintly as rain leaked through the soil, but he stepped down only onto a soft, damp floor of thin mud. The candlelight glittered dully on rusted tools hanging on the back wall and reflected on the brimming surface of a well-placed rain barrel, but he saw no sign of Ghaelya or anything that would have indicated she had been in the basement at all,
Ghaelya awoke with a cold slap of water.
Reality rushed her senses, overwhelming them with the chill of the flooded basement even as water filled her lungs. She gagged as she made the swift transition from breathing air to inhaling the cold water, shivering as it flowed down her throat. A taste of rust filled her mouth, and gritty bits of dirt caught in her teeth. Quickly orienting up from down, the images and sounds of her sleepwalk seeped into her conscious mind as she faced the cloudy darkness of the basement waters. Thrashing away from the murk, she braced herself against the wall and waited for the crimson eyes from her dream to come rushing at her through the shadowy flood.
Her body cooled, adapting as she waited, submerged and fearful of where she’d awoken and even more so of how she’d gotten there. As she drew her sword, careful not to disturb the water’s surface any more than she already had, she caught sight of a wavering shadow dancing through pale light from a narrow window. Mud and rust settled, allowing the shape to form in fractured beams of flashing light on the basement floor. Her eyes widening, she drifted forward, following the light to the dirty glass of the window.
There, crudely drawn in rust-colored lines roughly the size of a slender fingertip, lay the familiar mark of a candle’s flamethe mark of her family.
“She was here,” she muttered, her voice sounding swift and strange. Caught in a sudden storm of joy, fear, and relief, she stood in the waist-high water, her sword and caution forgotten at the sight of her sister’s drawing. Struck by her own sense of shock, she whispered, “She’s alive.”
“Indeed she is, child.”
Ghaelya spun to the dark, southeastern corner, her sword at the ready as ripples radiated outward, lapping gently against her thighs as the speaker moved. As her own voice had underwater, the newcomer’s bore a chilling, drowned quality that echoed in odd directions from the source. Grimly, she realized the voice was quite familiar.
“She is more alive now than she has ever been,” Sefir i said with reverence as he moved into the dim blue morning light, little more than a crouched shape in the water that swayed slightly, as if he listened to a slow melody that only he could hear. “And she waits for you to join her.”
“Where is she?” Ghaelya demanded, the weight of the broadsword in her hand comforting as she banished all thought of escape from her pursuer. The mere idea of his hands on Tessaeril made staying her blade all the harder.
“I will take you to her,” he replied, rising from the water, his silhouette manlike at first, but changing, unfolding as he reached his full height. Twisting limbs curled languidly around him, undulating above the water briefly before dipping under again. “If only you will allow me the honor.”
“Wh-why should I trust you?” she asked, taken aback and horrified as Sefir slowly approached, gliding toward her. She backed away, keeping the sword between them and found the bottom step of the stairs with her foot.
“You should not trust me,” he answered, his voice changing, growing more sonorous and suggestive, crawling around inside her thoughts. “I am unworthy of trust, merely a humble servant, a tool… A sword at the end of a divine arm.”
Ghaelya took the first stair behind her, rising slightly from the water and eager to escape. Placing her boot upon the next step, she paused as his voice somehow preceded itself, a chorus of sounds pressing on her mind until words formed within the chaos.
“She calls endlessly for you to join her, Ghaelya,” he said, nearing the bottom of the stairs as lightning filled the kitchen, giving her a brief glimpse of his tortured visage. A single eye glared dully from a network of fresh scars above a wide, lipless grin of sharp teeth. Blood-soaked bandages covered part of his face, dripping crimson down his cheeks and staining his rows of teeth, reddened spittle escaping them. “She sings in a glorious pain that even I will never know.”
She faltered on the next step, a familiar nerve-rattling growl shaking her from atop the stairs as she imagined the glassy, predatory eyes fixed on her back.
Brindani stumbled slowly through the cold, misty rain, his movements awkward and his legs heavy. His breath came quick and, despite the rain, he could feel the cold sweat breaking out on his brow. Each step seemed a forced effort, painful and frustrating, as the lack of his drug was announced by every muscle in his body. His eyes burned, and a pulsing headache had settled down in the space behind them, pushing outward into his temples and filling his ears with a storm that only increased his pain.
Once, when he was ahoy, he’d taken deathly ill and had barely survived. He thought fondly of those days as his stomach churned, as if it were eating itself.
“Quickly,” Vaasurri intoned yet again from several strides ahead, an undertone of annoyance in the killoren’s voice causing Brindani to grit his teeth in anger. “Keep up. Stay alert.”
Cursing quietly, Brindani forced himself to move faster, though his gaze drifted from house to house, corner to corner, the details of a former village coming into sharper focus even as his body seemed to fall apart. His mind placed ghostly figures and candlelight in each dark window, families hurrying to board their doors and hide from the coming storm. Turning a corner, he paused, his attention caught by the remnant of an old smithy sign squeaking in the wind.
He rocked back on his heels, staggering in the intersection of two narrow streets. Agony ripped through his stomach, and he bent double, kneeling as phantom cries and shouts echoed in his thoughts. The memory flared to
