Shadow of the Otherverse (The Last Whisper of the Gods Saga Book 3) (14 page)

Justin had approached closely enough that she could make out his features. His haggard, shrunken appearance startled her. She knew his age and he looked at least twice that. He was stooped like an old man. His eyes, however, shone with a red glow. He didn’t look entirely human but that was expected for one who had dabbled in magic for longer than she had been alive.

“My, you’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?” mused Justin. “I can tell from your expression you don’t think the same about me. This is what magic does to you although, truth be told, I wasn’t much to look at when I was young. Ariel said your beauty was the enticement that lured Sorial into braving the portal and I can see she was right. A fine consort for a young wizard, and with magical abilities as well… Ferguson knows his stuff. You might not believe me, but I desperately wish what happens next wasn’t necessary.”

Alicia decided that running wasn’t an option. The ocean wasn’t far away but she felt certain Justin could undermine her defenses and kill her before she got there. But perhaps she could bring the sea to her. Water and fire were natural enemies and, when it came to it, water was the stronger element. Perhaps that would give her enough of an edge to counterbalance Justin’s experience.

She concentrated, seeking out the nearby ocean whose breakers could be heard from where she was currently standing, and found… nothing. Panicked, she reached out all around her and met with the same failure. Suddenly, she couldn’t see, feel, or taste water. It was all around but she couldn’t
reach
it. It was if her wizard’s powers had been stripped away and she stood before Justin as naked in ability as in body. Terror surged again. She didn’t understand what was happening, but knew she was dead.

Justin read her expression. “There, there, no need to be frightened.” His voice was a parody of a father’s. “I promise to be gentle. In another lifetime, you and I might have been allies or lovers.” The ghost of a smile played across his thin lips.

The smile vanished almost immediately, replaced by an expression of alarm and puzzlement. When she saw it, Alicia understood. The loss of her powers wasn’t Justin’s doing. He was experiencing the same thing. The void! It had to be.

“What have you done?” demanded Justin, shock in his voice.

Alicia allowed a smile to creep across her face and feigned a confidence she didn’t feel. If he thought she was behind this… It also occurred to her that the balance of power had shifted. With their magic mutually gone, the situation favored her. Once, she had been a pampered duke’s daughter but the deprivations of the past year had toughened her. She was stronger, faster, and younger than the decrepit Lord of Fire. He wasn’t built for any sort of physical confrontation; his body was a shell to contain his magical essence. This might be her in twenty years, but not today. Today, she was young and healthy and unafraid to fight.

She acted quickly, crossing the short distance between them in seconds. Justin, surprised and bracing for a magical attack, was unprepared for the kick she launched at his midsection. He fell backwards to the ground, coughing and gasping, Alicia atop him. She knelt astride his emaciated body and began raining blows on him with hands clenched into fists. His nose crunched under one hit, spraying blood. She broke several of his ribs and possibly his right arm before he was able to rally.

In actuality, Justin was stronger than he looked. Despite being in pain as a result of Alicia’s attack, he was by no means helpless. He threw her off with some force, sending her sprawling across the moss-covered ground. He staggered to his feet, paused for a moment as if deciding whether to re-engage her, then turned and fled. Alicia didn’t consider pursuit. They were too close to whatever boundary had neutered their magic. If she passed back onto the other side, it would be Fire against Water and the advantage would tilt heavily in his favor.

She hadn’t done damage that a few weeks of recuperation wouldn’t heal but it felt good to be able to say she’d hurt him. The question loomed large, however, of what had reduced her encounter with Justin to one of fists and kicks instead of magical pyrotechnics. She reached for her magic again and found that nothing had changed; it wasn’t there.

Justin’s flight had taken him beyond her vision. Not far off, the fire still burned in the forest, although its ferocity had diminished. She assumed it wouldn’t take him long to determine that she hadn’t caused his magical outage but she deemed it unlikely he would approach again while she was within the void. If she had been bigger and more powerful, she felt certain she could have killed him with her bare hands. Somehow, the mouse had escaped, bloodying the cat in the process. Now it was time to seek out the thing that had made the escape possible.

Alicia waited where she was for the better part of an hour, allowing dawn to return to the forest. She recognized the folly of attempting to travel in the darkness, where any number of snares and pitfalls could lead to a serious injury. Once the blackness had turned to gray and she could see a few feet in front of her, she set out. By then, Justin’s fire had dwindled to the ruddy glow of dying flames and cooling embers. She wondered if he was out there, watching. The thought gave her chills. The loss of her magic made her hyperaware of her nakedness.

It took less than a half hour of walking to locate the Yu’Tar Library. The structure was decidedly unimpressive in comparison with the buildings of Vantok - a utilitarian form constructed by men with little knowledge of carpentry or masonry. The outer walls were formed from the most abundant available natural resource and the gaps between the massive tree trunks were chinked with some kind of clay compound. Moss, vines, and other forms of overgrowth provided a natural sort of camouflage; Alicia at first thought it was a small hillock.

A circuit around the perimeter gave her a sense of the library’s dimensions. It was larger than she had initially estimated. There was no indication of an entrance; she supposed it was concealed by the vegetation that had swallowed the building. It would require extensive searching on her part - normally not much of a problem except she was naked and there were a lot of brambles and nettles. Without the ability to use magic, she wouldn’t be able to heal the cuts and scrapes she was sure to endure.

She intuited the other presence before he made himself known. At first, she thought it was Justin but his approach from the depths of the forest was easy and unthreatening. She sensed, without understanding how, that his intentions were benign. She stood and waited; there was little else she could do in these circumstances.

“Welcome, child.” The voice was gentle, the words spoken with a strange accent that put an emphasis on the wrong syllable. “You have nothing to fear from us.”

By now, she could see something of the man who was addressing her. When she recognized who he was, or rather
what
he was, her mouth widened into an involuntary “o” of surprise. In one of the great rooms in her father’s mansion, a large painting had been a source of endless fascination for her five-year old self. Although it had been taken down at some time during her childhood, she still remembered it. Now, it was as if the subject of that portrait had stepped down from the wall to greet her. Wizards, rock wyrms, djinn, and dragons had emerged from myth and legend… why not elves as well?

The man regarding Alicia with wise green eyes matched the image in the painting the way that portrait reflected the stories of old. Small of stature and slight of frame, he was an inch or two taller than Alicia but weighed about the same. His ears tapered to a point, his nose was long and aquiline, and his eyebrows were upswept. The deep lines of his face and the color of his hair, which had long since faded to a snow-pure white, betrayed his great age. He wore simple clothing and, in a gesture of kindness, removed his cloak and offered it to Alicia. She accepted it with a wordless expression of gratitude.

“You are uninjured?” he asked.

She thought it would be ungracious to mention that her hip and back hurt from the fight with Justin, so she replied, “I am. There’s another - he’s hunting me.”

“It is not a surprise. He has been the cause of the death of one of my brothers. It is our vow that he shall not repeat the offense. We cannot deprive him of entry to the Library. Such is not our place. But we can strip him of his powers when he goes there.”

“Then you…? How?” Alicia was dumbfounded.

“You are a seeker of truth and an elemental wizard. You have come here with no malice in your heart. We will answer your questions as best we can and grant you admittance to the Library. Be aware, however, that if this other should return, we cannot intervene. It is not our place.”

Alicia flexed one fist and glanced down at scraped knuckles. “I rather think that if he returns, he’s more likely to need your protection than I will.” Given another opportunity, which she didn’t expect to be granted, she
would
kill him.

* * *

Later that day, Alicia was seated cross-legged around a roaring campfire in the company of eight elves. To her, they all looked identical to the one she had first met, who informed her that the translation of his name into the human tongue was “Aybear.” She had been greeted by the rest of the group with a mixture of cordiality and wariness. They provided her with a lightweight tunic and leggings, both of which fit nicely. The shoes she had hoped for were not to be found; the elves didn’t use footwear. They did, however, have a cooling balm that took away the sting of the cuts and abrasions.

How they were able to maintain a fire in this wet environment was a matter of curiosity for Alicia; it had to be through some kind of magic even though the elves’ camp was within the void. In fact, they were no more than a few miles from the Yu’Tar Library. Aybear had promised to conduct Alicia there on the morrow after they had answered her questions and, in turn, learned what had brought her to this place.

There was no sign of Justin, who was known by name to the elves. She sensed he would remain outside the void while she was within it. She wasn’t concerned for her safety at the moment but recognized that her life might be in peril once she departed. However, since Justin had a war to conduct, it seemed unlikely he would spend weeks lying in wait for her. A part of her was still frightened that there might be truth in his boast about Sorial. The possibility was too heartbreaking to consider. To ruminate on it in detail - there lay the path to despair. She had to believe that Sorial was all right and Justin’s words were the poison of lies.

The elves were a somber lot. They were rigorously polite but didn’t speak unless necessary and never smiled. Alicia wondered how old they were. According to myth, elves were long-lived with the lifespan of one eclipsing twenty generations of men. These eight might be hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years old. It was also noteworthy that there were no women or children in evidence. Were they elsewhere or were these eight men all that remained?

“Alicia of Water, by sitting around the fire and breaking bread with us, you are accepted into the Company of the Yu’Tar, we who stand in guard of the Ancient Knowledge.” Alicia couldn’t tell whether the man who spoke was Aybear or another. After saying the words, he raised an unleavened loaf to his lips and took a bite. It was then passed around the circle, with each elf sampling the bread until it came to Alicia. She consumed what remained, as Aybear had earlier instructed. She was famished, having not eaten since before the conflict with Justin.

Once the Ritual of Greeting was completed, a full meal was made available. Elf food was heavy on nuts, berries, and goods made from grains and there was no evidence they ate flesh, cooked or raw.

She was soaked through. Even without access to her magic, she enjoyed the sensation of being wet. She realized, however, that without the warmth provided by the fire, she would be chilled. With no sunlight reaching the ground, it was cool in the forest even at the height of the day.

“Alicia of Water, why have you come to our forest?” The elf who had spoken the opening words to the ritual asked this question.

“I come to seek knowledge at the library. My kind has recently returned to the world and we lack an understanding of the old ways. Justin, whom you know, is making war on peaceful human habitations and others like me would stop him before many more die.”

“A plausible explanation,” said one of the other elves. “We know Justin of Fire to be an ambitious man although, the first time we encountered him, he was much like you - a seeker of knowledge. Perhaps what he learned turned him into what he has become.”

“If we had known what he would do with that knowledge, perhaps it would have been better to bar him from entry. You may remember that I argued the point at the time but was unanimously overruled. Now I repeat that argument - it might be best to bar this one.” This elf addressed his comments to his fellows, pointedly ignoring Alicia’s presence, although he spoke in the language of humans so she would understand his words.

“Our purpose is to care for the library not legislate who can and cannot enter. This child has come seeking knowledge and it is her right to be granted admittance. We are but humble caretakers.”

“How long have you been here?” asked Alicia.

The first elf responded. “We arrived thirteen centuries ago when the library was first built and have remained here ever since. In return for our faithfulness in acting as caretakers, the wizards of that day showed us how to work magic with no elemental component. That capability has since vanished from human understanding. Justin of Fire neither knew about it nor understood it. By your reaction, the same is true of you. It is a simple kind of magic - mere trickery, some might say - but it surpasses your understanding because it does not involve energy from the Otherverse.”