Aster Wood and the Lost Maps of Almara (Book 1) (28 page)

“You would have never come,” she mumbled, her eyes casting downward. “People who are older than children, or who
think
they are older than children, seldom listen to their advice.”

She had me there. How many times had I tried to explain to my own mother that I was healthy enough to lead a normal life? Even here in the Fold, where I had powers beyond the average person, I was still thought of and treated like a young child.
 

“Look,” I said, “I’m a kid, too, in case you haven’t noticed. And if we’re going to be doing dangerous stuff you need to tell me ahead of time, alright?”

She nodded.
 

“So what’s the plan?” I asked.

Looking a little more hopeful now at the change in my tone, she breathed, “We will go in as quietly as possible. You will watch the mouth of the cave, and I will go to where the rocks are piled. Father told me that the dragon who lived in this mountain was rumored to be a hoarder of minerals as well as treasure, so it is believed that a wealth of Maylin history is buried in this chamber. I will find the rocks I need, there are only two, and when I come back out we will flee to find a safe place where I can work with them.”

“What will the rocks do?” I asked.

“They will break free the link, and then we can leave this place.”

“Sounds simple enough,” I said.
 

She smiled. “It may or may not be simple, but if things go as planned then we will escape this strange change in the weather tonight.”

The real possibility of returning home struck me at that moment, and I felt hopeful that she was right. Maybe, with Jade at my side, Almara was just a jump or two away. Maybe he hadn’t gone far at all, not wanting to leave his daughter too far behind.
 

“Let’s go,” I said, feeling renewed energy. I was ready to go home.

We crept around the edge of the cave opening. Jade stopped, peering inside, a look of dread on her face as she inspected the enclosed space. I could hardly blame her. She took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold.
 

We found ourselves inside an wide, tall cave. The walls on all sides were burnt black from the fire of the beast that had once called this place home, and vicious cracks ran down the stone. The light of the sun, dropping low in the sky, opposite the cave combined with the light that emanated from the dagger was enough for us to make our way inside without disturbing anything. Silently we crept farther in.
 

Suddenly, a gust of smoky wind blew at us from deep inside the cave; it was so unexpected that it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I spun around searching for the threat, certain that my worst fears would be realized, but no danger revealed itself.

“I think we should change the plan. Let’s stay together,” I said in her ear in my lowest whisper. She nodded silently.
 

As we moved deeper into the cave the wind coming from within it increased until we were both squinting our eyes to protect them from getting filled with dust.
 

“What’s happening?” I hissed to her.

“I don’t know,” she cried.

We pressed on and finally reached the far wall of the cave. Through the strange interior gale we saw giant mounds of silver treasure, and to one side a large pile of every sort of rock imaginable. I quickly knelt by the pile and began digging through the rocks.

“What do they look like?” I shouted to her over the noise of the wind.

“Stand back!” she yelled.

She raised her arms and I moved away from the rocks just in time. The entire pile of stones lifted into the air and slowly began swirling around like a debris field around a young planet. Two stones moved toward Jade amidst the chaos of the others. One was a ruby, the size of an apple, and it landed firmly in her right hand. The other, a small, shiny stone as black as coal, landed in her left. Slowly she released her hold on the cloud of rocks, and it gently came to rest again on the cave floor.

Jade’s face was exhilarated. A sheen of sweat covered her forehead, and a deep flush of effort colored her cheeks. She smiled an big, satisfied smile.

 
“This place is amazing!” she exclaimed. She held out the two stones for me to see, and I moved closer.
 

But her precious rocks were soon forgotten. Hovering in midair where the swirl of stone had been a moment before, was an ancient piece of folded parchment.
 

“Look!” I pushed past her and took the page from the air. As I unfolded it, Almara’s symbol shined up into both our faces. “It’s a letter!” We peered over the page and read.

“Oh! Father!” Jade whispered at the sight of the familiar script.

Dear Brendan,

If you have found this letter it can only mean that you have succeeded in freeing your dear sister. For this I thank you, truly. She is the key to everything.

I do hope you have fared better than we on your journey, for the party here has been decimated by the dangers of our quest. Foramar was lost to the wild cats of Rohana, Jamisor to the beast in the bit of Borastar, and Yirsa and Tristan to the dragon that called this cave where you now stand home. Samael, Seto and Sazar have fallen to the darkness.
 

I am the only one left.

So soon on our journey and already such hardship and loss. I fear that we will fail, but I will not quit. The book is out there, we just have to find it. My trust in the ancients is unwavering.
 

I move on now, alone. Follow me with this link. I will search the caves of Lilit next, as we decided, and then move on to explore Daromir. After that I will return home and await you and Jade. My strength, it is not what it was a year ago. I feel my heart falling with so much death and despair. I return home to fight the loss of hope. Perhaps, once we are together again, we will prevail.

Be safe.

Father

As we both studied the letter, something scratched at the back of my brain. I couldn’t figure it out, but something was different. Was it Jade? Had she changed somehow with the proximity of so many powerful stones? Or was it this letter? It was an undeniable link to her past, as well as to her future. Maybe it was her breathing, which was coming hard and strong. Or maybe it was another sound I was responding to, or a lack of sound. I suddenly realized that all the wind that had been howling through the cave had totally ceased.

It was then that he spoke.

“You are fools…” his deep voice drawled, enjoying the pronouncement.
 

We both pivoted on the spot.

There, smoke swirling around him, stood Cadoc, the man of our nightmares, both in waking and in sleep.

He sprang upon us so quickly that we wouldn’t have had time to run even if we had thought to. In a flash Jade’s arms were encased in his enormous hands, and he raised her off the ground and shook her back and forth. The stones in her hands fell to the floor under the force of his grip. Her eyes were wide with horror, glazed with the terror of facing her captor. I stuffed the letter into my pocket.

“HA!” he roared at her, flecks of spit showering her face. “You thought you could run from me?” He shook and shook her, and her head bobbed back and forth violently. “You are mine, girl.” He pulled her body close to his, sliding his finger down the side of her face from ear to chin. He gazed at her possessively, almost lovingly, and then he relaxed his grip.

The jade knife, the last thing she had managed to hold onto, glowed brightly with a pulse of power. But too late. Finally overwhelmed, she dropped it to the floor and lay lifeless in his arms.
 

“What did you do to her?” I bellowed at him.
 

He dropped her to the ground like a bundle of rags, turning on me next.

“And
you
,” he spat, approaching me in the fading light.
 

I stood helpless, searching everywhere for an escape. But I was completely trapped. He stood in front of the only exit from the lair.

“What do you want with me?” I asked, much more bravely than I felt. My eyes darted back and forth from him to Jade’s form on the cave floor.

He reached me in three long strides, towering over me and bending at the waist until his eyes were level with mine. I could smell his rotting breath and see the tiny droplets of sweat on his face and neck as he addressed me.

“What do I want with
you
?” he breathed into my face.
 

He smirked, his eyes full of madness. I flinched with each syllable he spoke.
 

“You thought you were so clever, didn’t you? You thought that releasing my captives would, what, somehow defeat me? Well, your friends are all mine again, locked up below my city where they belong. And what I want with you
now
is simple, boy.” His lips curled upward in a snarling smile.

I stared at him in shock, trying to make sense of his words.
 

And then he hit me. Pain like nothing I could remember feeling suddenly blazed across the left side of my face and echoed off the insides of my skull. He had backhanded me, his fingers covered with jagged rings that cut my skin as his fist met my cheek. Wet with blood, I fell to the ground, hitting my head against the stone. The world became a blur as Cadoc flipped me on my back and hovered over me. His lips moved and I could hear muffled sounds coming from him, but I couldn’t rouse myself from the force of the blow. He was yelling at me now, his face so close to my own, but I couldn’t concentrate on him, on the imminent threat of him, surely preparing to kill me.
 

I thought only of my friends. Owyn. Kiron. Chapman. All his again. Locked up forever. And now Jade, crumpled on the floor.
 

NO
.
 

He couldn’t have them back. They were free now. I had made them so. Anger filled my entire being as I searched through my haze for a way to hurt him, to lash out.
 

My eyes caught a glint of gold hanging below his neck. Dangling over his chest, the trinket twisted on its chain, catching the little remaining light that came through the cave opening. As he raged on, his words still muffled to my ears, I realized I had seen it before, in Stonemore when I had last been in his clutches. Only now I understood its immense value. The tiny amount of gold contained in that single piece of jewelry would be enough to make a hundred men rich beyond their wildest dreams in this place.

The pendant was the size of a walnut and round, and on the face of it was carved a six-sided star. As he shouted at me it twisted with his movements, and I saw, undeniably, Almara’s symbol scratched into the other side.
 

NO
.
 

Nothing with Almara’s symbol belonged to this man, if he even was still a man. And no one who followed Almara belonged to him either. That symbol represented
me
.
My
family.
My
people.
 

I focused my blurry brain as hard as I could on the necklace, and right as he began to stand, I shot out my hand and grasped the pendant. As he moved upright the chain snapped and fell into my palm.

Shock and fury outlined every inch of his face. He came down hard on me, but I rolled out from his under his massive weight, crawling towards Jade. If I could just get to her, maybe if I gripped her as I gave the command then we would be able make the jump together. Hadn’t it almost happened once with Cadoc? And he hadn’t even been touching me. It was the only chance we had to escape.

I was fighting, hard, to live. My attention was entirely focused on reaching Jade. But when I felt his iron fingers close around my ankle I became wild. He squeezed my ankle so hard I thought it would break, and then dragged me backwards across the floor to him, my hands hopelessly reaching out for the broken girl in front of me. I thrashed around, trying to escape, but his grip held me fast, trapping me. He flipped me onto my back with his enormous hands, and when I dared glance up at him an unmistakable look of joy shadowed his face. Raising his foot high into the air above, he brought down his boot with the full force of his body and struck me on the chest.

I both felt and heard my ribs crack, and for a moment my insides seemed to be mixed up; ribs jostled with my heart and lungs, each searching for their proper place in my chest. Then I found my voice and let out a wail of agony. Suddenly everything was perfectly, vividly clear. Each tiny sound in the cave registered clearly in my ears; Cadoc’s panting, Jade’s quiet, ragged breathing, my own gurgling attempts to keep air coming into my lungs. After the first shock of the blow, the pain faded, feeling far away now as the rest of the cave came back into focus.
 

Cadoc grimaced at me, a knowing look on his face. His work with me was done. I was dead, or would be soon. He moved away, back over to Jade, releasing me, not even bothering to collect the gold chain that was still in my fist. I was free of his grip, but the damage to my body kept me pinned down to the floor.

As he walked away from me, my brain urged my body to act, to help her. I remembered her face, smiling as it lifted to the falling rain. She deserved to live, to be free of the misery he had laid on her. But I lay there, broken. He murmured to her in a sickening hiss as he approached her limp form. I watched helplessly through the gasps of my blood-filled lungs.

“Princess,” he cooed, “why did you do this? You know you belong to me. Your power keeps us both alive and strong. Were you meaning to kill me, little darling?”

“Don’t do this,” I croaked. “She was Amelia’s friend. Don’t do this.”

He turned and stared at me. Perhaps it had been two hundred years since he had heard her name.

“You’re sick,” I choked. “That’s all this is. You’re sick and we can make you better. You can come back and be the man you were, Zarich.” It was a lie. If Jade’s elixir hadn’t helped Amelia, I doubted it could help someone as far gone as Cadoc. But I was determined to keep him away from her.