The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) (25 page)

“What’s happening, Milish? Why will nothing get through their shields?”

“Such is the power of their malengin.”

A malengin? Studying the shield wall he noticed its resemblance to a glassy prism, in the way it reflected light in a rainbow sheen.

“Quickly, Milish—explain this malengin.”

“The Tyrant uses the enslaved people of the Daemos to plunder the Wastelands and thus find the malignancy that exists in the dark side of nature. The Preceptor among them has the power to project it thus.”

Even as he was considering her words, a glowing fragment hissed between him and Milish, setting fire to the tree behind them and showering them with malodorous smoke. It forced them back, coughing, their eyes watering. “If this continues, Milish, the Shee will be defeated.”

“If they die, they will die with honor.”

Wheeling around, he addressed Ainé directly. “If I can breach the malengin, can you attack through the breach while still keeping the girl alive?” In moments, he found himself explaining his idea under the questioning gazes of both Ainé and Milish.

Alan knelt down by the smoldering remains of the dead Shee while Milish and Ainé stood back, repulsed by the sight and charnel stench of the brightly glowing corruption that still devoured her flesh.

He shook his head. “What I’m thinking is that, even if we don’t understand their weapon, maybe we can turn it against them.”

“How?”

Alan climbed back onto his feet, his eyes meeting those of the Kyra. “Can you find me a javelin—one with a good strong point?”

He was handed the javelin within moments and he spent a little while examining the tip. The head was made of no substance he was familiar with. It didn’t look like iron, or copper, or bronze. It might have been some kind of amalgam of a metal and crystal—he really
had no idea. He closed his eyes, focusing on the point through the oraculum.

He felt his imagination expand, sensing an additional ingredient, a spiritual force within the point. He assumed that this was the force linked to the jade-green glow he had seen passing between the Shee earlier, a force that must have been put there by the Kyra. He didn’t need to remind himself of the urging of Granny Dew: not to question, but to see what needed to be done. He recalled the feeling he had had in the presence of the Preceptor, that had also felt like some kind of spiritual force, if one of a dark malignancy. What it all meant, he had no idea. Alan had begun to sweat with worry, and his voice was husky, knowing the risk of what he was proposing.

“I’m going to see if I can help you to penetrate the wall of force around their shields.”

In the dirt, he drew a dome, representing the shield wall. “Here,” he declared, jabbing his finger at the apex, “is its strongest point. But if I’m right, it could also be its greatest weakness. It’s a bit like a keystone in an arch.”

Under the horrified eyes of Milish and Ainé, he twisted the tip of the javelin in the putrefying flesh of the dead Shee. Probing it again through the vision of the oraculum, he sensed a darker spiritual force that now inhabited the head of the lance. Then he focused his mind onto the tip of the lance head, moving slowly backward along the spear, infusing into it every ounce of power he possessed.

But how could he be sure it wouldn’t harm Mo? He had to pretend to be more confident than he really was. He turned to Ainé. “Can you throw it so it strikes at the dead center of the dome? Then have your Shee ready for an immediate attack.”

A few minutes later, he watched as Ainé bent her gigantic frame, then cast the javelin. He heard the faint screeching sound as it arced through the air, striking the center of the dome of shields. He saw it explode on impact. A stellate web of brighter green spread over the shield wall. Then the Storm Wolves began to howl. The force of the impact disrupted the shield wall and penetrated farther, to the arms steadying it from within. The dome burst asunder and the legionaries pitched and tumbled, in torment and panic, over a ground that was already proliferating with that slimy green poison.

Alan hadn’t anticipated the violence of what he had conjured up. The Storm Wolves were throwing aside their own weapons, which had been invaded by the vile green poison. If Mo was in the center of the battle group, she was in grave danger.

The attacking Shee darted skillfully among them, dispatching the enemy with a pitiless efficiency while searching for the captive child before the green contagion could spread to infect everybody. But all the while, the web of green was still spreading over the ground, subtly metamorphosing about its edges, as if the deadly force of the malengin was actively combining with the power Alan had infused into the javelin.
He picked his own careful way through the confusion of bodies. He saw many dead but he found no sign of the Preceptor or of Mo. The Shee were already leaving the battle zone in pursuit of the escaping soldiers, probing the encircling forest.

Milish helped Alan to continue his search, with fresh snow matting in individual large flakes in her hair.

“Over here!” It was Ainé’s voice from some distance away, and Alan hurried toward her.

The Preceptor was still alive.

Without Ainé’s cry, Alan’s nostrils might have led him there. The deathly luminescence leached into his skeletal features, causing him to shrink back for support against the bole of a great tree. Hate contorted his face as he clutched a small, bound figure, whose naked legs protruded from a filthy sack.

Desperately, Alan probed the bound figure, attempting to make contact mind-to-mind to reassure himself it really was Mo. But the mind inside the hood was as cloaked as the body. Meanwhile, the Preceptor’s other hand pressed the black-bladed dagger against his victim’s neck. A mist of green vapor exuded from his stinking flesh, and a foul glow was in his eyes. Dark blood trickled between his gritted teeth, dribbling down onto his captive’s head as he clutched the bundle even more savagely against his chest. All the while those hate-filled eyes stared deeply into Alan’s own, as if daring him to come and rescue her. The Preceptor’s voice was rasping, his throat already partly consumed by the spreading plague.

“Witches obsequium! Chance has favored you today but it will not long save you. Stand back! The merest prick of my blade and the insect-spawn dies in torment.”

Alan spoke grimly, urgently. “Let her go and we’ll end your suffering.”

The thin man cackled again. “Decide then which death is dearer to you? Is it to be this brat’s, or would you exchange your life for it?”

“No, Mage Lord!” Ainé laid a restraining hand on his arm. “Beware the scheming nature of this creature. Though weakened, he retains malice beyond your comprehension.”

Alan wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t expose Mo to danger. But no more did he expect that the Preceptor would hold back until he died from his wounds, even though the spreading malignancy burned more fiercely by the moment in his tormented flesh. If only he could delay the dagger for seconds longer . . . “How do I know you’ll release the girl if I volunteer to take her place?”

“I have no concern to reassure you!” He paused, as if to savor the mere contemplation of it. “I am the instrument of my master’s will. For such an honor, I would sacrifice an infinite number of brats such as this.”

Alan used the triangle to probe the Preceptor’s state of mind. Here he discovered no resemblance to the human envy and malice of Kawkaw. This was a mind perverted to darkness. And the brooding malevolence was not entirely spent. It attacked him back, still strong enough mind-to-mind to gain a fleeting hold over his
will. Alan’s limbs were stiffening again in that creeping paralysis. He knew that the dagger was extending toward his own throat. Waves of shock reeled through his mind. But even as the dagger lunged forward, he registered a furious movement at his side.

Faster it seemed than thought itself, he felt his body being pushed aside, and in that twinkling of time his mind was released.

“No!” Alan’s shout was a second too late.

In that distracted moment, the Preceptor, with blade extended, was pulled violently backward, his body rising up off the ground, pressed tight against the tree. Still the knuckles enclosing the black-bladed dagger were white with tension. The cackling voice still hissed with loathing.

“Infidel!”

Powerful arms encircled the Preceptor from behind. It was the golden-haired noviciate, Valéra, her arms long enough to encircle the entire bole of the tree and crush the throat of the Preceptor against the wood.

Alan had already grabbed Mo from the Preceptor’s arm, pulling her back toward him, tearing at the sack that covered her head. But when he ripped it off he found it wasn’t Mo at all. It wasn’t even a girl, but some other sacrificial innocent, an Olhyiu boy, perhaps one of those who had been lost overboard in the rapids, and who now sagged, barely conscious, in Alan’s arms.

Ainé had to stop him rushing at the creature. He could only watch with fury as a final sneer came over the marbled decay in the Preceptor’s face, the eyes
aglow with the green death, the poisoned blood dribbling between his bared teeth.

“Valéra!”

Protecting Alan had distracted the Kyra’s attention, but now a cry rang from her lips. It was too late. Even as Valéra crushed the Preceptor’s throat, the dagger was thrust backward, burying its sinuous blade to the hilt in the young Shee’s abdomen.

Mo’s Secret

At times her mind wandered so that Mo could almost convince herself that it was just a nightmare, but then a sudden cramping pain in her feet wrenched her back to the terrifying reality of darkness and fear.

I’m buried alive in a pit in the ground.

She had screamed out Alan’s name, again and again, searching for the mind-to-mind communication of the triangle in his brow, but he hadn’t answered.

Alan was not going to come and rescue her.

The realization that he would not be coming provoked such a giddy wave of panic she had to cast her mind wide again, to call out, hoping he would hear her and come for her. But there was no sign that he heard her, no answer except the pounding of her heartbeat. It must be night above the ground but she couldn’t really
tell because down here it was pitch dark all the time. The last thing she remembered was the thin man’s face leering cruelly down at her from the small opening above her head before the soldiers had dragged a slab of stone over the pit, followed by noises that told her they were covering the stone with debris and snow, hiding her away so that nobody in the world would ever find her.

It made her remember the many times Grimstone had locked her in the dark cellar at home.

The first time she had been only three years old, and she had searched for a box to stand on so she could look for the light in the low ceiling. The bulb socket had been empty and her finger had gone up into it, throwing her through the air with an electric shock. At the memory, gooseflesh erupted over her skin. And such a wave of terror came over her that she closed her eyes tightly and dared not open them after that. This time it wasn’t just a night in the cellar.

Why is this happening? What have I done to deserve it?

Mo recalled what had happened on the deck of the ship. How Mark had frightened her and Kate during the storm on the river. From the first moment of seeing him come out of the door, with his white face and tormented eyes, she had felt such an ominous feeling. In the past, when Grimstone had made her afraid, she had found strength inside her. Now she recalled what Alan had done to Siam at the ice-bound lake. He had awakened the soul spirit of the grizzly bear in Siam. She wondered if the part of her she had sometimes sensed, like a source of
strength inside her, was her own soul spirit. Right there, on the lurching and heaving deck, she had sensed the wrongness of what was about to happen in that part of her—she had sensed it so strongly, so awesomely, that it was very hard to imagine that the dark would ever go away, as it always had in the past . . . that things would ever be alright again.

Make me strong!
she begged the soul spirit inside her.

Tell me what to do!

But even her soul spirit had no answer to her terror. No help came. There was only silence.

It felt like ages since the soldiers had put her down here in the pit, and all that time she had been unable to move. Her hands were tied behind her back with leather strips which dug painfully into her skin, and her ankles were tied together in much the same way. But most terrifying of all was the leather noose the thin man had pulled tight around her neck and attached to an iron ring above her head. That was the cruelest trick the thin man could imagine. He had forced her to balance on a narrow pole that crossed the pit below her feet, so that if she slipped off the pole the noose would choke her. Even after she was down in the pit Mo had heard his rasping murmur up above her, as he was praying to his Master—a horrible kind of prayer—just to make doubly sure that nobody in the world would ever know she was trapped down here. Only then had the soldiers put the stone on top so she was left balancing on the pole in utter darkness.

Her feet were already so swollen and sore that they could hardly bear her weight, and her muscles were jerking and shivering in the effort to balance on the pole. And now her feet were cramping and hurting and her muscles were tired from having to stand all the time. And yet, if she slipped an inch . . .

“Oh Muh-Muh-Muh—
Mark!
”

Tears came to her eyes as she called out to her brother. She had seen how lost and frightened he had looked on the deck and, in spite of her terror, she wanted to reassure him that, whatever happened, she would die still loving him. But Mark couldn’t hear her any more than Alan could. Nobody could hear her. Mark had changed since they had come into this strange and frightening world. Why had Mark changed like that? Why had he frightened her and Kate? Why, when she went to help Kate, had he pushed her away?

In her mind, she screamed all over again with fright when she remembered that bat creature, that wasn’t really a bat but a . . . a kind of demon with wings, that had swooped out of the storm and caught her by the hair.

Alan—why can’t you hear me?

She projected her thoughts in another wild, desperate search for the triangle in his brow, repeating his name over and over for what seemed a very long time, weeping his name with her imploring mind.

The cramping pain in her feet was becoming unbearable, and dizziness was filling her head in debilitating waves. Her legs began to tremble and shake. Soon, she
knew, she would lose her balance. In final desperation she thought of the only person in this terrifying world who had ever seemed to care about her. She thought of Granny Dew. She called out her name inside her mind. In her soul spirit she wept and implored it, even as a new wave of dizziness invaded her head. Terror overcame her efforts at self-control, and she suddenly felt herself toppling. Then, just as everything seemed hopeless, she heard a growl, from way back, from so very far away, and she hoped it wasn’t just the wishful thinking of her panicking mind.

Mo spoke. “Is thuh-thuh-thuh-that you, Guh-Guh-Granny Duh-Duh . . . ?”

I am here, Little One.

From so far away, but coming closer—she found the will to hold on for just a few moments longer.

“Is it ruh-ruh-ruh-really yuh-yuh-you? I’m fuh-fuh-fuh-frightened it muh-muh-muh-might buh-be my i-muh-magination.”

Granny Dew knows where you are, precious one. Hold on, just a little longer.

“I duh-duh-duh-don’t know if I cuh-cuh-can hold on. I’m nuh-nuh-nuh-not buh-brave enough.”

The bravest always doubt themselves.

Mo clenched her teeth. She clenched shut her eyes. She clenched tight every muscle in her neck, her back, her legs, but still she couldn’t stop the wobbling of her whole body from her head to her feet. She knew she was about to fall off the pole. She was about to slip, and the noose would choke her.

“I cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-can’t . . .”

The wobbling became a shaking and jerking in her thighs. She couldn’t stop it.

Hold on, little one!

Her legs no longer belonged to her. Her knees were giving way.

“Cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh . . .”

A moment longer . . .

She felt a movement through her hair, as if cobwebby fingers were stroking her brow. Then, suddenly, there was a scratching in the wall of the pit, close to her face, and she smelled as much as heard something small and furtive come out of the dirt—something, she imagined, that must look very much like a rat or a mole. She no longer felt alone.

“Whu-whu-whu-what . . . ?”

A small mind that will gladly do my bidding. But first we must take care of your dizziness. Your breathing is poor and that’s what is making you dizzy. There now—take a deep breath.

Mo took several deep breaths, one after another. Tears were pouring through her clenched eyelids and over her cheeks. She felt the little creature lick at her tears. Then it began to nibble and tear at the leather that bound her wrists. It seemed to take several fraught minutes before her hands broke free.

“Thuh-thuh-thuh-thank you!” She coughed to clear the tears that had run down her nose and into her mouth. “Oh, thuh-thuh-thank you so muh-muh-muh-much!”
She blinked her wet eyes open, but the darkness was still complete. “I cuh-cuh-cuh-can’t fuh-fuh-feel my feet.”

Patience, child.

Mo felt the little creature pulling at the thongs around her ankles, but the focus on her ankles made her wobble horribly and she nearly slipped. And the thong around her neck was too tight for her shaking hands to free.

Hah! We must think again. The Preceptor is wily—the nature of what confronts us is tricky indeed. Fate, it would appear, has set us a riddle.

“A ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh—ruh-riddle?”

What else? The Preceptor sensed that he dare not kill you directly. So he set you a trap in which a mistake on your part would result in your death. But he has warded the trap with danger. We must find a subtle solution. Yet not too subtle for you, I imagine?

“Whuh-whuh-whuh—whuh-what sort of ruh-ruh-ruh-riddle?”

Perhaps we should make a game of it? Do you like to play games?

“Yuh—yuh-yuh-yes. I duh-do!”

Well now. Riddle-me-ree! But what is the answer, hmm?

A cackle in the voice of Granny Dew:
What am I, child?

Mo so loved riddles and had often played with them in her daydreams. She knew the answer straight away. “Thuh-thuh-thuh . . . thuh-three wuh-wuh-wuh-wishes.”

Three wishes it is. But think carefully now! First wish?

Mo felt so pleased with herself that she nearly lost her balance again and she had to stop everything, even her thoughts, just to breathe in and out very slowly and regain her composure. She closed her eyes again, to concentrate with all of her might.

“I wuh-wuh-wuh-wish to get out of this puh-puh-puh . . . puh-puh-pit.”

This, sadly, I cannot grant. It is the nature of the ward the thin man has set for you. You must choose another.

Mo’s heart, which had so rapidly risen, fell back into despair.

Think, child—as I know you capable!

“I wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wish to wuh-wuh-weigh . . . to wuh-weigh no muh-muh-muh-more than . . . than muh-muh-muh-my eyebrows.”

Then as eyebrows you are!

Mo felt herself float up off the pole so she was dangling from the noose around the neck, floating up and down, like a yo-yo. She felt so light that her feet no longer hurt at all and the tight noose became looser so she floated just an inch or two above the pole. With her freed hands, she loosened the noose and, after a
struggle lasting a minute or so, slipped it off her neck. Immediately, she felt for the bog-oak talisman and breathed a sigh of relief to find it still dangling around her neck. She clutched it, fiercely, instinctively.

“Oh, thuh-thuh-thuh-thank you—a muh-muh-muh . . . a muh-million times, Guh-Guh-Granny Dew. Yuh-yuh-yuh . . . you’re my fuh-fuh . . .”

Fairy godmother, I am not. A creature of the earth am I, and the earth of me.

“Thuh-thuh-thuh-then you ruh-ruh-ruh . . . ruh-ruh-really are the Earth Muh-Muh-Muh . . . ?”

Not questions—only wishes. Two more wishes you are granted. But you must discover wisdom beyond your years. Dannngggerrrr beckons!

“I’ve stuh-stuh-stuh-stammered all muh-muh-my life. I duh-duh-don’t want to stuh-stuh-stuh-stammer any muh-more.”

So, let it be!

Mo’s heart leaped in her chest. Her mouth was so dry she had to moisten her lips with her tongue to speak. “Whuh-whuh-when?”

When you realize your true name!

“Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh . . .”

Precious to you is the name your birth mother gave you, on a silver chain around your neck when you were abandoned.

“Muh-muh-muh-my real muh-muh-muh . . . ?”

They hid your true name from you.

Outrage flared in Mo’s mind. She forgot her desperate situation, so powerful was her need to know more
about her real Australian mother. Was she dead? Did she really hate her baby daughter so much that she gave her to Grimstone and Bethal without a backward glance?

“Whuh-whuh-whuh . . . whuh-why?”

Little one, there are reasons for secrets. Your real name has searched for you, and now it has found you. Mira is the name your real mother gave you. In her eyes your name always brought a smile.

In spite of the terror that surrounded her, Mo smiled too, and it seemed that in that same moment the shy, stammering Mo was gone. Her fingers rose and touched her lips.

“Mira? My name is Mira?” Mo’s heart leaped in her chest as she realized that she really had lost her stammer. “I want to know so much. I want to know about my mother—and my father too. I want to know about my real parents.”

No questions for now! Such answers will find you in time. The truth, for the present, is dangerous.

“Oh, please?”

Your mother was herself a lost and bewildered soul. She died of sorrow when you were not yet one year old.

Mo’s head dropped. “My mother died?”

Yet still she loved you. You sensed it, child, even as you lay curled within her, how you were the fulcrum of her world—as one day, if fate is just, you will become the fulcrum of another.

“I don’t understand you, Granny Dew. Only that you say that my mother is dead. Oh—I didn’t want to hear that.”

Truth is pain.

“I knew she loved me. I always knew.”

Hush now. And remember this: Mira must not speak of this, not to a soul. A time will come when it is right to tell, and Mira will know it when that time comes. But not until the time is right can you speak your name. You will promise Granny Dew?

“Oh! Must I?”

The whisper became a guttural roar:
Dannngggerrr—child!

Mo’s head fell. “Then, yes, I promise.”

All depends on your keeping that secret. Yet there is one more wish, and you must think very hard and make it the cleverest wish of all.

Above the pit Mo heard a scuffling noise. Somebody—or something—was scratching and scraping over the slab of stone.

“My third wish is that you care for me—that you never leave me. So I shall never be alone again.”