Aster Wood and the Lost Maps of Almara (Book 1) (25 page)

“You see,” she said quietly as our eyes met, “you cannot free me. This is not your battle. You are best to go on your way. Go now, before he returns.” The tears that filled her eyes did not fall to her cheeks. The strength of two hundred years kept her sorrow controlled just enough to prevent her crying.

What horrible things Cadoc had done. Not just to her, but to everyone he had ever come across. He had tortured, killed, or kidnapped anyone who had stood in his way. Or who possessed something he wanted. I realized that I, too, had something Cadoc wanted. I didn’t know what it was, but why else would he offer to help me get back to Earth? This girl had something he wanted, too, and look how he had treated her. For
two hundred years
.
 

I couldn’t leave her.
 

“We need to move,” I said. “How do I apply the key? Is there a dial somewhere or what?”

“You are a fool,” she said. “You are making the wrong choice.”

I sighed with frustration. “Look, kid, I don’t have any more time to deal with your attitude. You need me to get out of here. And I need you to get me to the next link so I can get home. Are you going to help me or not?”

She glared at me, offended by my tone. But then, with some effort, she extended her arm past the edge of the bed and pointed at the floor a few feet away from where I stood. I hadn’t seen it before, but on the floor, carved into the rock, were four large squares.
 

“You put the code there,” she said, “He always blinds me when he comes for me, so I can never see which characters he enters. I’ve never seen a single one.”

I knelt in front of the squares. “Never seen a single one,” I mumbled as my hands traced along the borders. So many markings and symbols lined every page of Almara’s book; surely there were millions of different options to fill in these four pieces of code.
 

Without asking her, I tried the first word that came to my mind. It was the same code I had entered at the stone wolf: J-A-D-E. This time, instead of golden light following my finger as I traced the letter, thick, black smoke trailed it.

No dice.

“What should we try?” I asked, flipping through the book.
 

“Cadoc speaks in a strange tongue when he breaks through the wall,” she said. “It is the language of
Sabellioc
, or the language of the dead.”

I held the book up so she could see the pages began flipping through, hoping she would recognize one of them as this Sabellioc. The last few pages of the book caught her interest, and I moved it as close to her as I dared.

“That must be it,” she said, wheezing a bit. “It is the only one I do not recognize.”
 

“What word?” I asked.
 

“Try wood,” she said.
 

“Why wood?” I asked. What did this have to do with me? But she did not answer. I flipped to the right page and deciphered the word from the alphabet I knew into the Sabellioc characters. I carefully drew the squiggly shapes into each square with my finger. Nothing happened.
 

“No, that’s not it,” I said.

“Try czar,” she said.
 

I did. It didn’t work.

“King,” she said.

And on and on it went. For at least an hour she would spit out words to me, anything she could think of with four letters, and I would translate them into Sabellioc and enter them onto the stones. Nothing worked.

Finally I stood up from the cold rock and threw the book at the far wall in frustration. How was I supposed to get her out of here? I sank down to the ground and put my head into my hands. She seemed to give up, too, and rolled over again.

“I told you,” she said quietly. “There is no way out. Flee while you still can.”

Maybe we had the wrong language, I thought. Maybe I should try all the words again with different symbols. But the more I thought about that the more unlikely that seemed, and the longer I spent buried deep in this mountain the less time I felt we had. She was right. If Cadoc spoke the language when he was here, the very language we had been trying for the past hour, then I was almost certain that it was the right one. What was I missing?
 

I thrust my fist against my forehead, tapping it again and again, trying to crack a code that this girl, herself, could not crack after two centuries of effort. The last time I had tried to free Cadoc’s prisoners, the key to opening the cells had been right there, hidden in the treasure hold. It was so powerful that not even Cadoc could figure out what to do with it. But the prisoners knew. They had just been waiting for someone to come along who was willing to help them. But this girl had no such hidden power. She had no idea how to get herself out.

The prisoners. I thought about them in their rags, their bony faces looking at me from behind their cages. Them all approaching the bars of their cells in unison, holding out their arms…

Suddenly I was on my feet. I had been so stupid! How could I not have realized it before now?
 

“Who says,” I said, approaching the edge, “that the code is made up of letters?”

I knelt down at the base and quickly entered in the only set of numbers that came to mind. The only numbers that Cadoc tattooed every single one of his prisoners with, branding them like cattle. 3-3-3-3.
 

The effect was immediate. I stood up and took several steps backwards as the rumbling started. The barrier between she and I began to glow brightly, like a pane of glass filled with light from the inside out, and the invisible sheet made little tinks and cracking sounds. Then, with a burst of force, the surface blew apart with a loud crash, the remaining shards of the barrier falling to my feet in a shower of a thousand pieces.

The girl stared at me with wonder, completely amazed. “How did you—” she began.

But it was my turn to interrupt. “We don’t have time,” I said. I moved across the space to her bedside and extended my hand to her. “Can you walk?” I asked.

“No,” she said helplessly.

“No worry,” I said. I bent over the bed and picked up her frail body, bony and too light. I walked with her in my arms through the narrow tunnel back out into the cavern, and I got a good look at her in the light for the first time.
 

Her eyes were fixed on the light coming from the dagger in the center of the room. At first they were simply wide, her mouth moving silently as if she were trying to work out an impossible equation. And then a smile, a real smile, broke across her face for the first time. Soon she was laughing with delight, tears breaking the hard barrier of her resolve and streaming down her face.

“Who are you?” she said finally, her enormous green eyes meeting mine for the first time.

“I told you,” I said, “my name is Aster. Aster Wood.”
 

Her pale, delicate finger reached up to her face and brushed away a tear.

 
“It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Aster Wood,” she said through hoarse breaths. “I am Jade Aednat Enda Wood, Princess of Borna.”

I gawked at her for a moment, trying to make sense of what she was saying.
 

“You’re a Wood, too?” I finally asked.

She laughed breathlessly, wheezing a little.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “But please, young Aster, let’s stop talking for now. You have brought with you a jadestone. Please hand it to me.” She motioned to the dagger on the floor, which was now spitting sparks and hissing with brilliance.

How did she know that? I shook my head. “I can’t hand it to you,” I said. “It’s not safe. It’s hotter than anything I’ve ever touched. Look, I’ve already burned myself.” I held out my arm and showed her the red welt on the base of my wrist.

She smiled weakly. “Alright, then, please take me to it.”

I hesitated, then walked over towards it, still carrying her, and turned my head to shield my eyes as we neared the intense rays of light.
 

“Closer,” she said. “You need to get me closer to it.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Closer,” she replied.

My eyes clamped almost completely shut now, I moved to within a few feet of the stone.
 

“Closer.”
 

I knelt down to the floor, and rested her body next to the stone. She reached out her hand towards it, clearly intending to grasp it.

“Jade, no!” I cried, pulling her back from the light.

She looked up at me, her big green eyes pleading. “Trust me,” she said.

I hesitated, but then relented, pushing her close to the stone so that her hand could reach out and take it. Her fingers stretched out and clasped firmly around the golden handle of the dagger. A small cry rose from her, but she did not drop it. Then, with what seemed to be enormous effort, she picked up the heavy knife and brought it to her chest, holding it there with both hands.

The light was too bright and the heat too intense for me to hold her. I released her onto the floor and stepped back several paces. I raised my hands up to shield my face, and caught occasional glimpses through my interlaced fingers.
 

She lay on the rock, both hands covering the blade that rested its heavy weight on her chest. Slowly her arms raised above her head, lifting the stone as they moved. Soon the glow from the stone extended to her hands, then her arms, and then her whole body was enveloped with the glowing light. She shook slightly as the radiation pulsed all through her body. Then, slowly, the light receded, and her arms relaxed to her sides. The dagger rested on her chest, and its light slowly drained away to a dim glow.

I approached her cautiously.
 

“Princess?” I asked. Her eyes were closed. “Jade?” She did not reply, and I dared not touch her. Slowly her lips curved up into a smile.

“Are you alright? I asked. “How did you hold the stone like that? I tried to touch it before and it was so hot; I couldn’t hold it at all.”

Her eyes remained shut as she softly spoke. “My story is long, young Aster,” she said, and her voice was noticeably stronger than it had been in her cavern, “but the short of it is that I am a master of stone. Jade, the stone for which I was named, is the most powerful to me. All these years I was kept alive by other stones, granites and common rocks are enough for one as me to survive.”
 

She removed the knife from her chest and placed it on the floor next to where she lay. Then, bracing herself with both arms, she moved up into a sitting position. The change in her appearance was dramatic. She seemed, somehow, fuller now, her skin less transparent. There was life in her movements where before there had only been weakness, and a low pink tint colored her cheeks.

“Within each stone lies a different power,” she continued. “Some can heal, some can kill. But the only stone with the power to free me from the spell Cadoc cast upon me is jadestone. He has carefully kept it from me all these years, knowing that I so much as touched a piece of jade he would be no match for me. His enchantment held me to the bed, too weak to move or fight.” Her eyes opened now and held mine in their emerald gaze. “You saved my life,” she said. “For that I am most grateful.”

 
“It was no trouble,” I said awkwardly. “I mean, what else could I have done?”

“Ah, many other choices lay before you,” she said. “It gladdens me that my rescuer is so pure he did not see them. But now we must go. He will be here at any time.” She started to push up to her feet.

The blush that had momentarily raised on my cheeks was immediately extinguished by the thought of our pursuer.

“Wait,” I said. “Where are we going?”
 

“We must escape this mountain and the Corentin. If we can find the tools I need to use my powers, then we can find the link and follow Father.”

There was that word again.
Corentin.
And who was her father?

“What is a Corentin?” I asked. “And I thought we were following Almara, not your father.”

“There is not time, my friend,” she said. “Can you ask your questions as we walk? You said before that you know the way.”

 
“Yes,” I said, a little irritated. She was one to be calling me young. “Let me get my things.” I walked back through to her chamber and collected my backpack in the dim light. When I came back out I obscured the pack as I approached her.
 

She was smiling at me, eyes wide. “That’s a nice trick,” she said.
 

I knelt down and she put her arm around my neck. She gripped the jade stone, and I helped her to her feet. Her legs wobbled beneath her, but with my help she was able to walk slowly forward. When we reached the narrow passageway that led back out into the gully, I couldn’t hold her any longer; the space was too confined.
 

“It’s ok,” she said. “I’m getting a little stronger. I can hold onto the sides.” She stretched out her arms and gripped the stone walls. The knife was awkward in her hand as she tried to hold onto both it and the wall.

“Do you want me to take it?” I asked her.

“No,” she said. “It’s better if I keep hold of it.”

I took the lead.
 

“So,” she began as she walked, “if memory serves me, we will have some time in this passage, even if we make haste. We can share our stories now. We do not know what will await us on the outside.”

“Ok,” I said. “But where are we going to go when we get out of here?”

“The link lies on the other side of the grasslands. This land is not large, and Father gave me many details about how to get there. It lies in a cave where the rock meets the water. Father told me the signs to look for along the edge of the sea.”

“That doesn’t sound very exact,” I said. “It’s
the sea
. That could be anywhere.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “But what other choice have we? We are hunted now. It is the only way I know to escape him.”

“But—” I stopped walking and turned again.

“What do you propose?” she interrupted. “The jadestone brought you to me, but I am not a paper map or an amulet imbued with the power of travel. Do you think such things would have survived with me back there for all these years? If you want to go back, or anywhere other than here, then this is the only way I know.” She folded her arms across her chest resolutely. “And every time you stop, you allow the Corentin to come closer to us. We must
move
.”