Unbroken Chain: The Darker Road

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The following day, three more masked witches arrived in Tinnir. Soon afterward, Agny came to tell them that the ritual would take place that evening. They had the day to prepare themselves.

Ashok went to see Sree a few hours before the ritual was to begin. He noticed on his way to Reina’s hut that the Rashemi berserkers gathered at the edge of the lake with the newly arrived witches. They were constructing a large raft by lashing wood planks together. The wood looked as if it had come from newly felled trees. The witches carved into the planks complex symbols similar to those Ilvani bore on her arms, readying them for the ritual, which would take place near the center of the lake. Apparently, Agny’s power was strongest on the water.

The masked women stared at Ashok as he passed, and one of them made a gesture like a ward in the air.

Sree saw him coming. She opened the door to the hut and beckoned him inside.

Herbs covered her kitchen table, staining it green and yellow. A small pot boiled over the fire, releasing fragrant vapors into the air. Ashok drew in the scent, but he didn’t recognize any of the herbs.

“Agny told me to warn you,” Sree said, “that when the warriors felled the trees for the ritual, they noticed a disturbance in the forest.”

“What kind of disturbance?” Ashok asked.

“A pair of treants-powerful fey spirits-inhabit the evergreen woods around Tinnir,” Sree explained. “Long ago our people named the larger one Tallmarrow and the smaller one Needle. They’ve protected this area for many years and have counseled the wychlaran. We made offerings, and the warriors showed the utmost care when they brought down the trees, but I’m afraid the influence of Ilvani and Elina here together in the village has affected even their ancient minds.”

“You think they’re going to seek revenge for you taking the trees?” Ashok said.

“Yes, and if they disrupt the ritual, the witches and Ilvani might perish,” Sree said.

“They have to cross the lake,” Ashok said. “We won’t let them get to you.”

Sree nodded. “Once the ritual begins, drink this potion down.” She took the lid off the pot and placed it on the hearth. Dipping a metal ladle into the boiling liquid, she poured a small amount into a metal vial. She stoppered it and handed it to Ashok.

The vial warmed his hands. Ashok held it between his palms and nodded his thanks. “How will I know if it’s worked?”

“You’ll know,” Sree said. “Whatever force threatens Ilvani, you’ll see it first, even if it’s invisible to the warriors around you.”

“I owe you a debt,” Ashok said.

Sree shook her head. She walked to the door and opened it. A rare parting in the clouds revealed a blazing sunset over the lake. Orange and purple rays struck the surface of the water and created a tapestry of moving color.

“Bhalla blesses us,” Sree said. “You should walk, shadow man, and enjoy this evening. How many like this can you claim in your lifetime?”

“None,” Ashok said. He stepped outside and let the rays turn his scarred flesh gold.

Ilvani walked with Reina along the lakeshore as the Rashemi warriors placed the finished raft on the dock. The ethran led her over to the raft and pointed at the symbols carved into the wooden planks.

“These hands on the outer edges are the hearts and minds of the villagers. The carvings bear drops of their blood, freely spilled for us. Their strength will protect us from any current that might upset the raft,” she said. “We won’t feel the motion of the water at all.” She pointed to an inner circle composed of mountain peaks and flames. “Sree’s work. Her magic will keep us anchored to our homes and our land, so none of us will go astray in the spirit realm.”

Ilvani looked at the innermost circle, composed of swirling lines. “What protection is that?”

“Agny’s,” Reina said, “and mine. We are the summoners-we will speak to Yaraella first and thus attract the attention of the evil that hunts her. Agny’s power is strongest on the water, so on water we stand. I also buried herbs in the symbols to represent the power of earth. The three of us are connected. We will face the evil without fear, as you must.”

Ilvani saw how it might go, with all the witches and their places in the circle. She saw her own spot in the center, a protected space marked with a dark carved slash like a tearing shadow. Next to it, a similar space bore a carving of a heather flower. Ilvani’s eyes narrowed.

“What is that?” she demanded, pointing to the flower.

Reina’s eyes clouded. “Elina’s place,” she said. “At Agny’s command, she will join the circle.”

“Why?”

“Why should it matter to you?” Reina said, sounding surprised. “The child is not your concern.”

“The child looks at me and sees its mother,” Ilvani said.

“I know,” Reina said. “The two of you will provide the strongest link to Yaraella.”

She still doesn’t understand, Ilvani thought. If the child dies, in her last moments she’ll look to me to protect her. She looked at her hands, those useless appendages that always failed her. She did not want to have to watch the child’s soul slip through her fingers, but she didn’t tell Reina that. The ethran would never understand, Ilvani thought bitterly, how a soulless one could know so much about the spirits.

Ilvani left Reina at the dock to wait for the other witches and wandered along the shoreline to watch the blazing sunset. Ashok emerged from a stand of pines a few feet away. They saw each other at almost the same time.

Ashok came to stand beside her at the edge of the water. They watched silently as the Rashemi put the raft in the icy water. Ilvani recognized the tension in the set of Ashok’s shoulders. It was almost time for the ritual to begin.

“Sree believes there could be an attack during the ritual,” Ashok said. “A pair of treants.”

Ilvani closed her eyes and stretched out tentatively with her awareness. She sought restless spirits, but she didn’t want to get too close. She didn’t want to risk them lashing out at her.

Her awareness met an angry wall in the depths of the pinewoods. Ilvani recoiled from it and drew into herself protectively. When she opened her eyes, Ashok was watching her carefully.

“Did you see them?” he asked.

“In the forest,” Ilvani said. “I felt rage, pain, and madness. They’re coming.”

“Skagi, Cree, and I will be nearby,” Ashok said. “We won’t let them get to the raft.”

Ilvani said nothing. She thought if it came to it, Ashok would use the nightmare to burn the trees and perhaps the rest of the forest. Then the Rashemi would turn on them. Ilvani didn’t need prophecies from Tempus to tell her that the berserker warriors with their superior numbers would slaughter them all.

“Leave the flame in its circle,” she said. “It won’t help you this time. It will only anger them.”

“What do you mean?” Ashok said, but then understanding lit his features. “You don’t want me to bring the nightmare out of the stables?”

“No matter what,” Ilvani said. “Give me your oath.”

Ashok looked unhappy, but he nodded. “You have it. I won’t use the nightmare for the battle.”

“What-not use the pony?” Skagi’s voice came from behind them. Ilvani and Ashok turned to see the brothers approaching the shoreline together. Cree’s vacant eye socket with its serpent tattoo drew Ilvani’s gaze, but the warrior was looking at Ashok.

“Ilvani says the Rashemi won’t appreciate having the nightmare here,” Ashok said.

“Afraid to get singed, are they?” Skagi laughed. “Fine, then. We don’t need the beast or the Rashemi, not after the ice trolls.”

“And the brigands,” Cree added. “Don’t forget the winter wolves, either. What will you conjure up for us on the journey home, Ilvani?”

Ilvani said nothing. She couldn’t look away from Cree’s missing eye. The serpent had taken it. Why had she gone walking in the caves that day? She didn’t remember what impulse had led her to the pens, but if she hadn’t gone, the shadow serpents would never have gone mad. She imagined Cree’s eye in its proper place, his face as it was-whole-but she couldn’t picture it. His face was as it was. She couldn’t see him any other way.

The silence stretched, and Cree finally realized that she was not ignoring him-he saw where her gaze rested. His lighthearted expression changed, becoming sober.

“I jested, Ilvani,” he said. He pointed to the serpent tattoo and the empty socket. “This wasn’t your doing.”

“Yes, it was,” Ilvani said. She let the other worlds intrude too much. She let the snow rabbit invade her mind and mark her body. If they were to survive, if she wanted to exist fully in this world, Ilvani knew she would have to find a way to silence the voices, the shadows that invaded her thoughts and dreams. She felt lost. She’d never before asked for help from anyone.

If Natan were alive, she would have asked her brother for guidance. She’d waited too long to find the words. Now Natan was dead, and she had to find her own way.

“After tonight, your link to Yaraella will be severed,” Ashok put in. “The journey home will be much less eventful.”

Skagi groaned. “So we can look forward to the witch blasting us with black lightning every few miles, is that it?” He leaned toward Ilvani conspiratorially. “I’d rather have the monsters. Can’t you bring just a few into our path?”

They jested to put her at ease. Ilvani had never experienced this type of companionship. She saw it when the brothers bantered with Ashok as well, the ease of their friendship, the way they fought side by side. They became more and more as one every day they were together, but Ashok was the center of it all. He was the link that bound them.

The more he grows, the more shadar-kai will look to him to lead, Ilvani thought. The bonds between those here were strong, but the brothers didn’t realize how weak Ashok was without them. What will happen if that link is severed?

He will be tested, Ilvani realized with a shuddering clarity. His will against the shadows. Natan had seen a prophecy with Ashok and Ikemmu at its center. Ilvani saw something quite different looming, a shrouded future brimming with uncertainties.

She pushed the speculations aside. They would not serve her or Ashok now. Not until she was whole again, with Yaraella released from her, could she help him.

“The nightmare stays in the stables,” Ashok was saying. “We’ll have to fight this battle ourselves and trust in Rashemi aid.”

“They don’t trust us,” Cree said. “Most of them look at us like we’re ghosts. They ignore us.”

“It’s because we’re prettier than they are,” Skagi said, snickering. “Makes them nervous.”

Ilvani focused on the words and let their bantering distract her from her dark thoughts. The sun descended into the cloud-filled horizon, and the colors bled from the surface of the lake.

The wychlaran came with the darkness.

Masked and swaddled in brown cloaks and hoods, the witches walked single file onto the dock and stood facing the Rashemi berserkers. One by one, the warriors lit torches and stood them on ice patches at the shore of the lake.

Agny in her mask of water carvings raised her arms and made a sweeping gesture toward the torches. Water surged up around them and formed an icy wall to trap the flames. The cold should have extinguished the torches, but Ilvani noticed Sree had also raised her hands, and the flames answered her call, flaring brightly against the ice.

The entire portion of the lake the witches occupied was now illuminated. The Rashemi berserkers stepped into the shadows and turned to face any threats that might approach the lake. Ashok and the brothers went to join them.

Ilvani turned and met Ashok’s gaze before he left her. He nodded once, but he didn’t speak. She turned and joined the witches on the dock.

Agny went first, and one by one, the wychlaran stepped onto the raft. The ethran Reina led Elina by the hand. Ilvani came last and took up her place in the ritual circle next to the child.

She felt the power already. The symbols carved into the raft held their own magic, but the circle was wider than just their small craft. Lake Tirulag itself boiled with the ancient powers of the living and the spirit world. Ilvani felt the arms reaching up from the lake, the silent cries of the telthors.

Above her, the sky was full of bright, shardlike stars, eclipsed only by the owl’s wings as it circled the ritual ground. Ilvani traced the path of its flight and didn’t realize until a breath later that the witches had begun a chant. They’d joined hands, trapping Ilvani and Elina within the circle.

Ilvani knew her part now. She kneeled before the witches-Elina sat with her knees tucked up to her chin-and reached over to lay her hand on the child’s arm.

“The connection is sealed,” Agny said. “We will not leave this circle until our task is complete, or until death takes us.”

“The circle is complete,” the witches echoed.

“The circle holds me,” Ilvani murmured. Power surged through her limbs, the combined strength and magic of the wychlaran. She gasped. Agny, Sree, and the rest were suddenly in her thoughts and she in theirs. The whispers were deafening; she couldn’t tell one voice from another or hear her own thoughts in the barrage of sounds and secrets.

Throwing her head back, Ilvani sucked in the cold night air and watched the stars whirl above her. The owl soared high and called out to her, but she couldn’t answer him. The wychlaran chants grew louder. All the barriers, not just those erected in her mind, were breaking down.

The Veil, Ilvani thought. The Veil between the worlds dissolves in this small, protected space. She had no choice but to walk the dark roads with these unfamiliar women and pray that they did not intend her death.

The last sound Ilvani heard before oblivion was the sound of trees ripping themselves from the earth.

In the darkness, and with only one eye, Cree still saw them first. He waved his katar to get the others’ attention and pointed to the darkness beyond the ice-encased torches. The swaying motion of the trees wasn’t caused by the wind, but by a spirit walking the earth on two legs, thick gnarled trunks covered in ice and pine needles woven like sinew. The weight of the tallest branches bent the treant over so that it walked stooped, its branches dragging the ground and picking up snow and dirt.

“They’re bigger than I thought,” Cree told his brother, who stood beside him.

“I still think burning them is the best way,” Skagi said. “What do you think, Ashok?”

When Ashok didn’t reply, Cree turned to look at him. Ashok stared out over the lake, watching the ritual. He held a small metal vial in his left hand. It was empty. He wiped his mouth and threw the vial in the water.

“Are you ready, Ashok?” Cree asked. He didn’t know what had been in the vial-perhaps a healing draught given to him by the witches. Many of Ashok’s wounds in the fight with the winter wolves had been slow to heal.

“I’m ready,” Ashok said. He braided his chain around his hands and stood beside Skagi.

The second treant, the smaller Needle, came behind its older mate. Its legs were more spindly and fragile-looking. Cree thought one good slice with his katar would drop the creature. He waited for the Rashemi berserkers to act first, but the warriors didn’t move. They simply stood their ground by the lake, blocking the path to the witches’ raft.

“What are they doing?” Skagi hissed. “Are we going to fight them or aren’t we?”

One of the warriors stepped forward, and to Cree’s surprise, held up his hand in a formal greeting as the fey creatures approached.

“We beg you, children of the pinewood, to turn back,” he said. “Accept our offerings of peace. We mean you no harm this night.”

Skagi cursed under his breath. He shifted his falchion from hand to hand. Cree shared his brother’s impatience. He’d never encountered a treant before, but he knew how the creatures would behave in Ilvani’s presence. They would not listen to reason.

“Please, spirits, turn back,” the warrior said. The larger treant was almost upon him.

“Get back, you fool!” Cree shouted, but his warning came too late. The treant swept its needle-thin upper branches down and impaled the warrior through the chest.

“Looks like they’re not in the mood to talk,” Skagi said. “Eh, Ashok?”

Skagi cursed again, but this time there was true fear in his voice. Cree turned just in time to see Ashok collapse on the lakeshore.

“Cover me!” Cree shouted to his brother. He kneeled next to Ashok as the berserker warriors ran up to flank their fallen comrade and fight the treants. Skagi positioned himself in front of them.

“Looks like the whole damned forest is moving out there,” Skagi said. “Tell Ashok this is no time for sleeping.”

Cree bent over Ashok’s chest, his ear pressed against his breast to listen for a heartbeat. He sat back, stunned. Distantly, he heard a sound like dozens of trees ripped from the earth by their roots. More of the pine trees stirred to life and moved toward the lake. He tried to speak but couldn’t.

Skagi turned, saw his face, and barked, “What is it? What’s wrong with him? Tell me, godsdamnit!”

“He’s dead,” Cree said.

Ashok stood on the battlefield and waited for the treants to come to him. Something didn’t feel right. The sky was immense, the light of the stars so bright, it looked like daylight. He looked around, but the Rashemi berserkers were gone. So were Skagi and Cree.

Dread washed over Ashok. He turned to face the lake. The raft was empty except for a single figure huddled in a brown cloak. Her back was to Ashok. He couldn’t tell the figure’s identity.

Gripping his chain, Ashok walked out onto the dock. “Where is everyone? What’s happened out there?” he shouted. The figure didn’t move. When he looked down at his feet, Ashok realized that the dock had vanished. He walked suspended upon the water’s surface.

The vial. The sky was too big, the stars too bright-he’d crossed over into some other realm, the place of the ritual. If that was true, where were the other wychlaran and Ilvani?

He hurried across the water to the raft. When he stepped onto the edge, the craft rocked ever so slightly, and the figure whirled to face him.

Ashok didn’t recognize the woman at first. Beneath her cloak hood, she wore no mask. He’d grown used to identifying the witches by the markings on their masks, and it was only when he looked at the woman’s eyes that he felt the flash of familiarity.

“Sree,” he said, “where are we?”

The witch’s eyes widened when she looked at him. Now that her face lay bare before him, Ashok easily read the fear and confusion in her expression.

“This isn’t right,” she said.

Dread turned to panic inside Ashok. “Where are the others?” he demanded.

“Dead,” she said.

“What?” he cried.

Her expression hardened then, and Sree drew a curved knife from her belt. “You. You’re supposed to be dead,” she said, and came at him with the brandished knife.