Vantra gripped the Sun shard harder than necessary, and the edges dug painful lines into her palm. The brush of the Light shield against the dusty path kicked up particles that felt like a grave; deep, crushing, dark, inescapable, and she fought the growing terror that the shield would fail, and the stuff would rush in and smother everyone. How could she prevent their doom?
The shield spanned from Jare and Lorgan at the front to Mica at the very back, past the rest of them walking in pairs. It sat just inside the edges of the path, avoiding the ferns and brush that carried the corruption as if it were dewdrops. Fingers like those that initially reached for her rose from the plants and scratched at the barrier, leaving dark streaks behind.
She glanced back to check on her companions as the air grew oppressive, holding a taint as thick as the humidity. Mica looked uneasy, the pirates in front of him more so. Dough and Janny had not said a word since their arrival, and their grimness proved their lack of voice came from heavy dread. Kenosera and Yut-ta wore matching expressions of nausea, and she would be with them, if she had a living body to react to the twisted aura surrounding them.
She wafted into Kjaelle, the touch of comforting Darkness nipping her essence. She popped back out, embarrassed she had not realized Lorgan and Jare had stopped. She cast her a quick smile of apology; the elfine winked. No insult, apparently.
They stood in front of the collapsed stone arch at the city entrance. Walls spanned away from it on both sides, only a peek of grey rock visible through dirt mounds and clusters of wrist-thick vines, mosses and scraggly bushes. Clouds darker than the night filled the path beyond, an ominous barrier to the ruins.
Lorgan motioned to them and they crowded close. “That’s a play on the waterdome spell that sends beings to land in case of a breach.”
“The same spell we saw at the library?” Kjaelle asked.
“A similar one, yes. Where it sends the unwary to is anyone’s guess.”
Probably the Void. Vantra hated thinking it, because her fear threatened to overwhelm her. She did not want to reunite with her mother, only to have her existence ripped to shreds and her core sent to eternal nothingness before she could have her questions answered.
“Do we go through or try to find a way around?” Jare asked. “The path leads inside, and while dangerous, I don’t trust the forest to work with Navosh’s Blessing.”
Vantra did not, either. Funny, how the dark creeping of Rezenarza’s power within the Snake’s Den was sunshine and happiness compared to what surrounded them. Or maybe it, too, had been corrupted by this unknown being he referenced, and he, like Kjiven, had not realized it until too late. She doubted the nymph would mention it, since his self-perception relied on divine strength and mental prowess, two things undermined by falling victim to a more powerful entity.
“Since we need to deal with corruption either way, we should stick to the trail,” Lorgan said. “Vantra, your Sun’s proved it can hold against this darkness. Coat the Light shield with it. We should make it through without mishap.”
It was not so much her power, as the Sun within the shard, but she would correct him at a safer time. She looked down at the object, watched rays dance from its interior, then closed her eyes and concentrated on doing as the scholar asked. Once she laid the power across the protection, the fingers jerked away, licks of golden flame eating at their tips, and receded into the underbrush.
Kjaelle stared at the surrounding forest. “Don’t you find it odd, the enemy prepared for Light and Darkness, but not Sun?”
“Kjiven hasn’t had the time to adjust his spells,” Lorgan said as they moved forward. “There’s a larger plan at play, and he’s activated it. That’s taking his effort and attention.”
“But you would think, if the Finders worked with his followers, that he would know about the Daughter of the Sun.”
“He might not have believed them,” Jare said. “Especially after the oracle sundered.”
“Or maybe their collaboration isn’t as strong as we thought,” Mica piped up.
“There is something more going on,” Vantra said. “Rezenarza didn’t mean Kjiven when he talked about being betrayed.”
“So we have another entity to worry about?’ Jare asked as they entered the clouds. All talk died.
Vantra would rather sit in Daunifen’s belly with the blobs sticking to her shields than proceed. How anything managed to feel worse than physically dying, she had no idea, but it did. The terror, the helplessness in grasping for a breath that would not come, the rage . . .
Rage. That was it. Rage, mingled with darker hate. They filled the magic, combining to corrupt all that it touched. Had Kjiven incorporated what he felt into the spells? His rage, hate and resentment, towards Talis, towards those who destroyed Selaserat in a flood and those who burned Kjivendei . . .
But why use the Wiiv, if they were the ones who decimated his legacy?
She added more Sun to the coating as the clouds snagged it and, with the stickiest of resin touches, tried to drag it off the susceptible Light shield. The puffs jiggled, but continued the attack, even though the surface that gripped her magic flaked off in ashy bits.
The clouds disappeared, and they continued until Mica cleared them. A few more steps into a flickering light, and Lorgan and Jare stopped. Vantra peered around them, wondering what made the high-pitched whirring sound, and immediately re-strengthened her coating.
Dozens of dark-furred, brightly feathered rufang stood between foliage-swathed, fallen stone structures and broken column drums, some clutching torches, most holding spears and drawn bows. They wore leather gauntlets, bark-decorated greaves on all four legs, and a brown, silken sash wrapped around their waist three times. Greyish green threads of magic snaked across the symbols painted on their lower torsos’ back fur, but what spell activated, she could not tell. Above them hovered the spintops, their downward thrust shaking the tops of trees that grew among the ruins.
Standing as leader was the yondaii that fled with the elfines escaping Selaserat’s undercity, Zepirz. The marks across his body ran from his hair to the tip of his tail and glowed dark green, a color she would normally associate with the deepest parts of a forest, but now seemed poisonous. He raised a staff made from a branch that had twigs sticking out of the top and shook the beads and ratty black feathers strung between them.
Brilliance swirled in a circle at the front of the spintops. Multiple missiles struck the shield, too many to count; Vantra had never felt the like, and the shard flared, but she could not hold the layer. Sun disintegrated, leaving Light to protect. Darkness engulfed her head as Jare and Mica glowed, almost as bright as whatever attacked them, and the defense held.
The brilliance died, though the Light-blessed did not dim. Dust surrounded them, casting the Wiiv in a brown haze. They stood motionless, eyes gleaming from the torches, unbothered by the fouled air.
Zepirz held a hand over his eyes and squinted at their group. “You who grew within the belly of Yonkateri stand side by side with these trespassers. We will not spare you.”
Yonkateri? Vantra knew different peoples had different names for the Evenacht, but she had not encountered that one in Lorgan’s expansive history notes on the Elfiniti and Greenglimmer.
“I side with these trespassers because I have seen the corruption swallow the glimmer of green within the forest,” Kenosera said. He spoke with steady aplomb, no quiver belying fear. He must trust the Light-blessed greatly to keep him safe, because she had already failed in that.
“You speak to me of corruption?” the yondaii seethed. “You stand with those that brought it.”
“It is the same corruption I helped eradicate from my desert home. It is born of ill-thought, ill-deed, not righteous fury and defense.”
Zepirz clacked his beak loud enough it echoed off the fallen stone. “The young take risks their elders know are folly. Leave the interlopers. We will see you home, away from their destructive influence.”
“Destructive influence?” Yut-ta asked, arms crossed, wings ruffling. “The Sun Temple’s been good to me.”
“The Sun is an abomination in our lands! No good will come from paying homage to it. They’ve tricked you into thinking otherwise.”
Fury raged through Vantra before she clamped down on the reaction. He could believe what he wished, but Sun was not an abomination! Maybe the priests who claimed to worship him were, but not Ga Son or the magic associated with his touch.
“Really,” Lorgan asked, thick with sarcasm. “And I thought the Wiiv Everlasting prophecy started with the rays of Sun breaking through the Evenacht’s cloud cover and bathing the chosen rebara in their warmth.”
The yondaii flinched. “You know nothing of what you speak!”
The brilliance burst into being again, and more missiles struck the shield, producing flares at impact. Where had they gotten them? While she had seen plenty of moving and still images of combat spintops on Talis, the Evenacht had very few because only a handful of specialized factories built modern armaments. How odd, an ancient elfine who stole a deity’s mantle and a shaman who wanted nothing more than the ghosts to leave his land, used Talin machines to attack enemies rather than the magic that infused the forest.
Kjaelle leaned in, her lips next to her ear. “Can you sense the ziptrail?”
She jerked her attention away from the aircraft and focused on the ground. Encased in the darkness they encountered upon entry into Deousem sat a faint line, too far away to dive into. “It’s surrounded by those clouds. We need to get closer before I can touch it.”
“We’ll need to make a run for it, eh?”
She nodded. Could she mark it somehow? The enemy had to know their target, so slapping a glowing sphere above it would not give them unknown information.
Kjaelle wafted to Jare and said something; he turned his head, nodded, and she returned to her spot near Vantra. “Jare agrees,” she whispered. “Lorgan will carry him so his attention remains on the shields, Dough will get Mica, but I need to help Janny so she and I can float with Kenosera and Yut-ta. We glide faster than physical beings run, and we need the speed. You need to lead to the trail and get us inside it.”
Lead? Her insides quivered as the elfine floated to the others and related the simple plan. True, she could sense the ziptrail, however faint. But how to get there? Mica was the one who would know the streets, not she!
The volley ended, and while battered, the Light shields stood.
“Return to your city,” Zepirz shouted. He waved his staff above his head, and the Wiiv behind him thumped their spears in unison. “Say your goodbyes to those you care for. You will not survive Strans’ embrace.”
“Giving up before we’ve fought isn’t a Light-blessed style,” Jare said.
“As Sun is an abomination, so, too, is the false Light.”
“False Light?” Lorgan asked. “His predecessor gave Talis his mantle, no trickery on his part.” Vantra wondered why they engaged, then realized Kjaelle needed time to explain to Janny how her Ether form could carry a physical body. Up until she joined the mini-Joyful, she had assumed the only living beings in the Evenacht who could interact with a ghost’s ethereal form were the spiritesti, and they did so through magic. Kjaelle must have a way for the pirate to cart a body around without Mental touch, but she could not guess how. Should she add that to her too-long list of touch-related learning materials?
“No holy divine would slaughter so many who lived to serve him,” the yondaii said.
“Except for Strans, after he finishes his embrace,” Jare said.
Zepirz clucked his tongue. “One does not slaughter the already-dead,” he insisted. “He will cleanse the forest of those who do not belong.” His glyphs’ glow intensified, and he flinched hard enough that he had to catch himself. Did the magic flowing through them hurt him? How terrible!
“Does that include the landed exiles?” Lorgan asked. “Or just the ghosts.”
“Those in opposition had their choice, and they failed their ancestral duty to the rainforest. They who think invaders from another world, another existence, deserve to remain among us will fall with their delusions.” He struck his chest with his fist. “We know the destruction wrought on the leaves and branches.” He waved his hand at Kenosera and Yut-ta. “We know the duplicity that tears our children and our homes away. We know the shriveled fruit bore from once ripe plants, and we know how to return the abundance to the dwellers.”
Something changed in his voice, and the drumming of the spears sped up. Vantra floated between Lorgan and Jare, uneasy at the change; the Wiiv planned to attack, and they needed to leave before a prolonged fight delayed them. Watery ovals the size of her hands appeared in front of her and two handles formed from them. She assumed she would guide the shield in that way, much as she turned a bike.
The wind increased, and not from the spintops. It ripped plants from the walls and buffeted the Light shield, but the Wiiv did not react to its touch; did they not feel it?
“The Labyrinth was never meant to be caged!” Zepirz continued. “The rainforest was once free, once filled with caretakers who saw its beauty and its terror, and embraced both. Now it is muted, as dead as the spirits who claim it as their own. We will free our forest, free our peoples, and return to what the trees and the dwellers were meant to be.”
His delivery reflected the reverence of prayer, rather than a promise, reflecting his deep belief in the destructive nature of ghosts. The spintops returned to their assault as soon as his words ended. Vantra gripped the handles, thankful for the Darkness helmets Kjaelle created. If she squinted hard enough, she might perceive their path.
The round of attack ended.
“Now, Vantra!” Kjaelle yelled.
She thrust the shield into motion. Arrows arched over the yondaii and struck the protections, sticking out and quivering before flames consumed them. Zepirz lowered his staff and pointed the tip at them. Black flames curled around each branch, and the sides of his mouth pulled into a wide grin before he struck.
