Gabrian had his eyes closed as he slowly turned the wheel, adjusting the submersible’s course. He was whispering to himself, picking up the traces of the path Malgore had taken only hours before. They were getting close now. He could sense it. Far below their ship, he had a fleeting mental image of a large vessel lying on the sea floor, rooted in place by heavy anchors. Of course Malgore and the others were no longer aboard, so Gabrian didn’t call for a halt. He cracked his eyes open, and moments later the sea floor came into hazy view below them. The sandy bottom quickly rose until they were floating through dangerously shallow water. . . .
Suddenly their vessel jerked and slowed with a roaring and
skrishing
of sand.
“Time to go,” Gabrian said, abandoning the wheel.
Esephalia fell in behind him as they walked aft-ward. Reven met them at the ladder to the top hatch. He was still naked but reasonably covered by his hair and the darkness. His palms were bleeding from turning the rotors for hours on end, and he looked very weary—as though he hadn’t slept in weeks—but his green eyes still held a fiery strength.
Gabrian was the first to pop out the top hatch and look out over the remaining distance to the shore. Waves were cresting and breaking on the tail end of their submersible, rocking it gently. There came an indignant roar, and Gabrian turned to see Gral falling off the slippery hull with a loud
splash!
as the troll emerged from the rear hatch.
Gral broke the surface with another roar. “Gral not like wet!”
Gabrian turned away with a faint smile and studied their surroundings. They had run aground on a sandbar barely a hundred meters from the shore. The beach was clearly visible through the thin wisps of mist coming off the water.
Esephalia and Reven emerged from the hatch behind him.
“Where shall we go now?” Esephalia asked.
Gabrian pointed to a distant slice of the sandy, white beach where there was a small hut built upon the shore. “There.”
They dove off the top of the submersible and swam for the shore. Gral brought up the rear with sloppy, almost useless strokes. Soon his feet touched bottom and he eagerly traded walking for swimming.
When they emerged from the water, Gabrian led the way up to the hut with a purposeful stride. Esephalia followed them with a curious frown until she saw the two crumpled forms lying face down in the sand not far from the structure. She hurried to the nearest one, her heart hammering in her chest, and she turned him over. “It’s Aurelius! Malgore has killed him at last!”
“No,” Gabrian said, dropping to his knees beside her. He placed a hand on Aurelius’s chest, his eyes closing. “No, his life force is still strong, only far away. It will take me a moment to bring him back. Go see to the princess.”
Reven came up behind Gabrian and stood there frowning down at Aurelius. Gral finally splashed out of the water and began running up the beach. He ran with wild abandon until he reached the transition between sand and scrub to the rolling grassy hills. There he stopped and briefly turned to look back at them. After trading a meaningful look with Reven, he started off at a run once more, and this time he just kept going until he was a distant speck upon the horizon. Reven watched him go with a wistful smile, feeling torn. He wanted nothing more than to be rid of this unfortunate group and return to the dark, brooding forests of Nordom, but he suspected those ancient, towering trees lay far, far beyond the horizon where Gral was now disappearing. That, and Reven still felt honor-bound to protect Aurelius—if the boy were still alive. His gaze returned found the elder and he focused on that pale, expressionless face.
Suddenly Aurelius sat up with a gasp, and Reven jumped back with fright.
The boy looked around quickly, getting his bearings.
“Welcome back,” Gabrian said.
Aurelius shivered. “I thought they had me.”
Gabrian frowned and slowly rose to his feet. He held out a hand to help Aurelius up. Not far from where they were standing, Esephalia had her hands placed on Lashyla’s head and chest, her lips moving in concentrated silence.
Aurelius hurried over to her. “Is she okay?” he asked anxiously, eyes flicking over Lashyla’s still, quiet form. He noted how her travelers’ robes were charred at the edges, but her skin appeared unblemished. He hoped that was a good sign. It seemed liked Malgore had somehow managed to electrocute her. At last, Esephalia sat back with a sigh and shook her head.
Aurelius’s heart abruptly stopped hammering in his chest. “What is it?” he asked.
“She will live.”
Aurelius let out a long breath. “But?”
“She will need some time to wake up. Perhaps hours. Perhaps minutes. I cannot say.”
Aurelius nodded slowly, relieved, but still worried about what that meant.
“Where did Malgore go, Aurelius?” Gabrian asked suddenly.
The elder slowly turned from Lashyla. After a moment spent blankly staring at the old wizard, he turned and pointed down the beach. Gabrian followed the gesture, as did Reven. A wind blew in from that direction, stinging their exposed skin with driving sand, and Reven lifted his head and sniffed. “I smell a familiar foulness on the air.”
Gabrian nodded absently, his gaze distant, but intense, as though he could see something beyond the rocks which cluttered the middle distance between them and the horizon. “Malgore.”
* * *
Malgore followed the sweet, but now fading echoes of the queen’s song. She was no longer singing, but the lines repeated endlessly inside his head. Those lilting verses drove him across the sand, stumbling over boulders and rocks. He was so distracted by his mindless quest that he didn’t even notice when the rocks rose high to either side of him, hemming him in, and funneling him down a narrow chasm. It was the perfect place for an ambush.
“Malgore!”
He didn’t even turn to look. His attention was so focused on the task of getting back to Meria that nothing else seemed to matter. A familiar old man dropped down in front of him, and he felt more than heard the near-simultaneous thuds of three more people landing behind him.
“Give me the relic,” the old man intoned.
Malgore stopped walking and stood his ground, swaying on his feet. “No, I’m taking it back to the queen.”
Gabrian’s eyebrows lifted suddenly. “To the . . .
queen
. . . ?”
“Get out of my way!”
Gabrian nodded slowly and held out his hand. His voice returned, but now it was soft and reasonable, as though he were speaking to a child: “We’ll take it back to her for you. You needn’t trouble yourself.”
Malgore recoiled, shielding the relic from Gabrian. “No! I must take it back to her
myself!
”
Gabrian shook his head sadly. The focusing crystal in the tip of his staff began to glow brightly as he slowly brought it into line. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”
* * *
“Look out!” Esephalia yelled, pushing Aurelius back against the chasm wall just as Gabrian’s staff flashed brightly with a crackling burst of energy. A ball of blinding light hit Malgore and sent him flying through the spot where Aurelius had just been standing.
The mage fell and tumbled along the pebbly chasm floor. Gabrian ran after him with his staff held high and glowing once more. As he leveled it in Malgore’s direction for a finishing blow, the old mage rose and held out his own staff just in time to catch and deflect the Gabrian’s attack into the rocks. They exploded with a deafening
bang!
and rained dagger-sharp splinters down all around them. Malgore raised his staff for a counter attack. There came a crackling burst of light, and suddenly Gabrian went flying. He slammed into the rocks and his staff exploded. He slid to the ground with a groan.
“I need to help him!” Esephalia said. “Find cover and stay there!”
With that, she rushed forward, her hands outstretched, her lips moving but no sound coming out. Suddenly a hail of sand and pebbles went flying at Malgore. He stumbled backward, clawing at his eyes. He gestured blindly with his staff, and a shockwave rippled out from him, knocking Esephalia off her feet and sending her flying. Her head slammed into a nearby outcropping, and she crumpled to the ground and lay still. Aurelius was likewise slammed into the chasm wall behind him. Reven loosed a frustrated growl, and when next Aurelius looked, the hairy man had been replaced by a massive black wolf, bounding off on four legs, quickly retreating up the other side of the chasm and running away from the fight.
Aurelius turned back to see Malgore stalking toward them with calm fury, his yellow eyes were red and streaming with tears.
Gabrian was only now struggling to his feet, and Esephalia wasn’t moving.
“You should know better than to get in my way, Gabrian.”
“You never stop underestimating me, Malgore.”
“That’s because there’s so very little that’s estimable about you. Goodbye, brother.”
Brother?
Aurelius blinked in shock.
Could it be?
he wondered.
Malgore raised his staff and his voice, beginning the spell which would end the fight once and for all. Gabrian looked around wildly for his own staff and found its splintered remains scattered all around him. Malgore’s staff began glowing brightly. . . .
And then Gabrian let out a startling shout: “Abrea hur gatas su timel!”
In that exact instant, there came a vicious snarl and a massive black shadow leapt down from above. Malgore whirled around just in time to see Reven knock him over. Both Malgore’s staff and the relic went flying. Aurelius watched the relic roll to a stop in the pebbly sand, and he was about to rush out and grab it, but something strange was happening: the world around him seemed to be slowing down; even his frantically beating heart quieted to a more steady pace. The relic was glowing brightly and quickly changing colors, passing through the whole spectrum and back again, faster and faster until it was glowing white hot. The ground around the relic began smoking, and then there came a blinding flash accompanied by a loud
bang!
and Aurelius was picked up and thrown against the chasm wall with incredible force.
As the shockwave eased, Aurelius regained his feet and blinked against the bright, lingering glare. He found that for a few frustrating moments he was completely blind, and when his eyesight finally cleared, he saw Malgore making a run for the relic. Above the relic there was now a swirling portal of darkness. Reven was climbing slowly and painfully to his feet, while Gabrian, who’d been standing closest to the relic when the shockwave had rippled out was lying face down and motionless on the beach, far beyond the entrance of the chasm.
Reven rushed up behind Malgore just as the mage was stooping down to grasp the relic.
“No!” Gabrian yelled suddenly, reaching out with clawing hands as though to stop Reven, but it was too late. The werewolf collided with Malgore and his momentum sent them both sprawling straight into the swirling darkness. The portal disappeared almost instantly with a loud
pop!
Aurelius was dumbstruck for a long moment, wondering what had happened. Then he was looking around for the relic, but there was nothing where it had lain save for a blackened depression in the sand. Somehow, Malgore had taken it with him. Aurelius felt horror slowly dawning, his mouth dropping open as he realized . . .
Now he'd never get home.