The Eighth Warden Bk. 03 Ch. 27-28

"Shavala?" came a voice from behind her. Corec had followed her. "We were heading back and I didn't see you."

"I wanted to get a better look."

"For your book?"

Shavala's friends wouldn't understand the true wonders of the room. She could explain it to them, and they would listen attentively, but there were no words she could use that would relay how unusual and unique it was. The book was an excuse they could understand.

"Yes," she replied. "Could you take away the mage light so I can see the luminescence?"

"The what?"

"The glowing."

"Oh, right," he said. "Sure."

The mage light disappeared, and he set his lantern off to the side so it wouldn't shine through the open door. The mushrooms began glowing green again. The moths' purple glow returned as they dispersed from the spot where they'd been flitting around the mage light, and instead flew down closer to the ground.

Shavala stepped into the room, walking on the springy moss around the edges. The smell and feel of the air suggested a dampness that hadn't been present anywhere else under the mountain.

She reached out with her elder senses, searching for any explanation for what she saw. Despite the moisture in the air, she couldn't find any source of water.

And then she felt something familiar. The tree branch in the center of the room was tershaya. And not only that, but it was still alive. With proper harvesting from a druid, tershaya wood could live for hundreds or even thousands of years after it was cut, but this piece felt far older than anything she'd encountered before.

She approached cautiously. The mushrooms became more numerous as she neared the mound, but she stepped between them, taking care not to crush any.

Close up, the green glow illuminated the tershaya branch. It stood upright, thinner toward the base while the top was thicker and knotted, appearing like an elongated version of Bobo's cudgel. Her elder senses told her it wasn't actually standing atop the mound, but instead pierced all the way through it, down to the stone floor.

"What are you looking at?" Corec called from behind her.

"I think it's a staff," she said.

She laid her hand against the shaft. Images in her head. Flashes. An oasis in the middle of a desert springing to life before her eyes. A dying tree restored to health. A view from a plateau surrounded on all sides by a massive forest.

She let go with a gasp. The forest had looked familiar. She didn't recognize the plateau, but the trees were tershaya. Where had the visions come from?

Taking a deep breath, she grasped the staff with both hands and pulled up on it. She'd expected it to be stuck inside the mound, but it came free easily, causing her to stumble backwards.

The images came again, more of them this time. Vast swathes of farmland, full of healthy crops. A forest with large fronds and ferns growing up and toward each other between two trees, forming a small shelter from the rain. Under clear blue water, a field of strange, spiky figures gradually shifting from white to red.

"Shavala, are you all right?" Corec said.

"I'm fine. I'm coming out."

The images were slowing down. In many of them, she could see part of the staff in her peripheral vision. Sometimes she could see the whole staff, with an arm holding it out in her field of view. Sometimes a man's arm, sometimes a woman's. The images had to have come from people who'd carried the staff before.

She could concentrate now, enough to return to the doorway. The staff was over six feet tall, well above the top of her head, but it wasn't particularly heavy.

"You brought it out?" Corec asked.

"Ellerie said it wasn't enchanted, but could you check again?"

"You think it is?"

"It's tershaya, and it hasn't rotted away. Surely they kept it for a reason."

Corec stared at the staff, his eyes going black before returning to normal. "I don't see anything."

"I think I'll hold onto it anyway," she said. She wasn't ready to talk about the visions yet. The staff was trying to tell her something, but if Corec knew, he would try to convince her to leave it alone until they learned more about it. Sometimes he was too cautious.

#

"I'll take over the watch if you want to help with the wagons," Sarette told Boktar.

"Are you sure you're up to it?"

"I'm feeling better now," she said, embarrassed. She'd known that some of her people, especially those with stormrunner blood, had a bad reaction if they went too far below ground—it was why the deeper mines near the southern edge of the Storm Heights had been leased to Tyrsall—but she'd never experienced it for herself before.

"Then I'll take you up on the offer," he said. "I think Nedley and the boys have the wagons ready to go, but I'll start packing up the camp. Ellerie wants to move everyone back to the buildings south of the mountain since you're coming with us tomorrow."

Sarette nodded. Boktar had asked her to accompany him to Livadi in case they encountered another lightning storm while out in the open barrens.

Keeping watch didn't require all of her attention. From the slope above the camp, she could see for miles around even without her spyglass. No one would be able to sneak up on them here.

To occupy the rest of her time, she practiced with her new staff-spear, familiarizing herself with the weight and balance. This one was similar to her uncle's, though the blade was longer. When she charged it, the metal shaft meant that the magic faded more slowly than it did with a wooden shaft.

It was an excellent weapon, better than her old one, but it couldn't match the feel of the enchanted staff-spear she'd tried the night before. She returned to the camp. Boktar had already packed the magic weapons into one of the wagons, so she slid the two staff-spears out and weighed them in her hands. Finding the one she liked, she returned the other to its spot.

"Hey, Nedley!" she called out. "Do you want to spar?"

The boy looked around for Boktar, who nodded. "We're just about done here, Ned. You can go."

Nedley retrieved his sword and shield, as well as his brigandine coat, which he'd taken off while packing the wagons. He joined Sarette and they walked back up the slope so she could take another quick look around the horizon.

"You'll have to get some better armor when we start hauling everything out," she said. "One of those breastplates or even a full set of plate."

"Really?" he asked. "Can I do that?"

"You've got an eighth of a share, right?"

"Boktar says I do. It was in the contract he had me sign back in Tyrsall."

"Then I'm sure you could, unless you'd rather have the money. We don't know how much each share will be worth yet."

"I don't know. If it's enough money, then I can write to my brother and get him to leave Larso. Treya says I can't go there myself to get him because the voice might take me again." Nedley and his older brother were from Tyrsall originally, but had joined Prince Rusol's mercenary army after their father died. Nedley believed his brother was still there. Everyone was careful not to mention the possibility that he, too, might have been turned into one of the red-eyed men.

"After what Rusol did to you, it seems like you should write to your brother either way."

"He doesn't know anything about magic. He won't believe me. It'll be hard enough to get him to believe me about my new job."

Sarette nodded and didn't push him any further. Out of habit, she rapped the butt of the spear against the ground, charging it. Then she grimaced. The charge didn't fade with this weapon, and she certainly couldn't spar Nedley with it active. That was one downside she hadn't considered. She touched the blade against her other staff-spear to discharge it.

"Is that one of the magic ones?" Nedley asked.

She winked. "Yes, so don't tell anyone. I'll be careful not to hurt you. I just want to get a feel for it."

She went through her practice routine, using Nedley as more of a training dummy than a sparring partner, but taking care not to strike too hard. Then she gave him a chance to do the same, correcting his form as best she could. She wasn't as good of a teacher as Corec or Boktar, but she'd sparred with the three men enough to know the habits they were trying to get Nedley to break.

After an hour, they took a break so she could check the surrounding area again. There were no figures to be seen, but there was a strange-looking haze to the southeast. Sarette frowned. She couldn't sense any oncoming storms, or even a slight change in the weather; it hadn't rained in days, and the land had dried out again.

She found her spyglass and took a closer look. The haze was tinged with brown—a dust cloud. The barrens were dusty when dry, but for the cloud to be visible from this distance suggested either strong winds or a large group of people.

"What is it?" Nedley asked.

"Probably just some wind, but you'd better tell Boktar just in case. I'm going to try to get a better view from the south side of the mountain."

###

Chapter 28

The sun had set by the time Corec and Ellerie made it back to the surface. When Boktar let them know Sarette had seen people in the barrens, they'd decided to head back to camp rather than waiting for the stranger to wake up. Leena came as well, in case they needed to send a message to those who'd remained inside the ruins.

Exiting the cave, they met Sarette and Katrin returning from the southern side of the mountain.

"Where's everyone else?" Katrin asked.

Corec told her what had happened.

"You found one of the Ancients?" she said, her voice rising.

"We're not sure about that," Ellerie said. "Whoever she is, she's unconscious. Treya and the others stayed below to watch her and to watch over the other things we found."

"Sarette, can you show us what you saw?" Corec asked.

The stormborn woman shook her head. "It's too dark now, but I think they stopped just after Boktar left to find you."

"Stopped?" Corec asked. "They made camp? Or you just couldn't see them?"

"I could see them when there was still some light, but they didn't seem to be coming any closer. Or going in any other direction."

"Do they have horses?"

"I don't know. I can't even say for sure that they're actually people—it's just a tiny bit of movement in the distance. But it doesn't seem like there'd be a group of wild animals in the barrens."

"How far away are they?" Ellerie asked.

Sarette thought for a moment, then pulled her writing stick out of her pocket. "I need paper."

Ellerie handed over the stack of notes she'd been working on inside the ruins. Sarette found a blank page, then looked around and chose the back of Boktar's armor as the nearest hard surface. Corec held his mage-light lantern up so she could see what she was writing, while the dwarven man grumbled about being used as a table.

Sarette scratched out a series of marks on the page, then turned back to the group. "This isn't exact, because I'm just estimating my elevation relative to theirs, but I think they're somewhere around twenty-five miles away. It could be as low as twenty, but I think it's closer to twenty-five."

Corec relaxed. "That'll give us plenty of time to see if they're coming this way. Even if they're traveling light and marching straight for us, it would take them most of a day. Are we still moving the camp tonight?" With Sarette leaving to accompany the wagons the next morning, it wasn't safe to leave the camp out in the open since they'd have no protection in the event of another lightning storm. They'd planned to move back to the abandoned buildings south of the mountain.

"The wagons are already packed," Boktar said.

"Good. Chances are, these folks are just passing by, but let's avoid attracting their attention. We can hide the camp inside the buildings, and if Rusol or someone else sent this group after us, it'll be easier to defend ourselves there too."

"Should we just move inside the mountain after all?" Ellerie asked. "I don't really want to stay underground all the time, but it'd be easier than going back and forth."

"No. We've only found one way in or out. They could trap us there."

Boktar said, "Maybe I should wait another day before heading south with the wagons. Just until we know for sure."

"Will the supplies hold out if you do that?" Ellerie asked.

"With the extra supply caravan, yes. The problem is that they're expecting us to meet them. Leena, could you go to Livadi tomorrow and tell Lufton we'll be late? I don't think he's left yet."

The Sanvari woman didn't respond right away. She was staring off to the southeast. "Wouldn't it be better to know for sure, right now?" she said.

"What are you saying?" Ellerie asked.

"Twenty-five miles is within my Seeking range and my Traveling range."

"Can you do that?" Corec asked. "We don't know who they are. I thought you said you had to know something about what you're Seeking."

"We know where Sarette saw them, or just about. I used that to Seek them."

Ellerie blinked. "You already found them?"

"Yes. I can go there right now if you want."

"That's too dangerous! What if they're red-eyes? Or those people who've been attacking your clan?"

"I can Seek a spot a mile away and walk closer in the dark. If they see me and they don't look friendly, I'll just Travel back here."

"How far away are they?" Corec asked.

"I'm sorry," Leena said. "I'm still not very good at measuring distances like this. Sarette's estimate sounds right."

"Ellerie's right. It's dangerous. That's a long way away if something happens and you need help."

"If these might be the men who attacked us before, then I have to go. I have a duty to my people."

Ellerie scowled and looked away.

Corec sighed. He didn't have any right to stop Leena from doing what she wanted. "If you're going to try sneaking up on them, you'll at least need to wear something dark."

She looked down at herself. She had on one of her modest dresses, this one in bright yellow. "I could wear a cloak," she suggested. Her other dresses were all light colors too.

"You can borrow my dark blue dress," Katrin said. "We're close to the same size—I think it would fit."

#

Treya laid her hand over the girl's forehead to see how she was doing. There didn't seem to be any change; she was simply asleep.

It was getting late, and Corec and Ellerie had been gone for an hour. It would be at least two more before they returned—possibly longer, if the people Sarette had seen turned out to be a problem.

"Maybe we should wake her up rather than waiting," Treya murmured to Shavala, who was sitting nearby. "We can't stay here all night."

The elven woman wasn't paying attention, seemingly distracted by the wooden staff she held in her lap. After a moment, she blinked and looked up. "Can you wake her?" she asked.

"I didn't hurt her that badly, and I can just heal the rest of it normally instead. I mostly only cast the spell to keep her unconscious. I should be able to undo it."

"What if she tries to kill you again?" Razai called out from the other side of the room, where she was pacing back and forth.

"I stopped her before. Besides, I thought that's why you stayed here."

"If you want her dead, talk to me. If you want to keep her alive, she's yours to deal with."

"She doesn't deserve to die. She has no idea what's happening."

"So you think."

Marco came into the throne room carrying his cloak in his arms, using it to hold the jewelry from the room with the enchanted items.

"Is anyone going to help me?" he asked, glaring at the rest of the group.

"Should you be doing that?" Razai asked.

"Ellerie said only the statue was warded. For the rest, she just said not to touch them until we know they're safe. So I didn't touch them. But we might as well get it all inventoried and ready to go." He carefully laid the cloak and the items it held out on the floor.

"I'll help," Bobo said. He'd been making sketches of the five thrones. "Shavala, did you bring your gathering sacks?" There was no response. "Shavala?"

"What? Oh, yes, I did." Shavala put the staff to the side, then stood up and pulled two of her thin cloth sacks from a coat pocket.

"Wait, Bobo, can you stay here?" Treya asked. "I'm going to wake her up and I'll need your help to talk to her. Marco, maybe Razai can go with you."

Razai rolled her eyes, but took the sacks Shavala offered her. It wasn't that Treya distrusted the demonborn woman, but she was hoping to avoid another fight.

She waited until Razai and Marco had left, then said, "I'm going to do it now. It's probably better to have fewer people around." She put her hand on the girl's forehead again and checked to make sure she was fully healed, then removed the healing sleep before backing away.

The girl's eyes opened slowly at first, then shot wide open as she saw them standing above her. She jerked up into a sitting position and backed away, jabbering incomprehensibly.

Treya held her hands up to show she was unarmed.

"I can't tell what she's saying," Bobo said. "Wait—that was fortress, I think. She's talking so fast, and all the sounds are different from what I learned. I'm not sure if it's the first peoples' language or not."

"She said vasta," Shavala mentioned. "Elf."

The girl pushed herself to her feet, moving easily in her mirror-like plate armor. She stopped and stared when she saw the thrones, seeming to recognize where she was, then renewed her harangue more stridently. She reached for her sword, and when she found the scabbard empty, she spun in a circle, her eyes darting around the room.

Treya said, "Bobo, she's looking for her sword. Tell her it's safe."

"I'll try." He spoke a few words, but the girl showed no sign of comprehension. He tried again, varying the pronunciation, and she tilted her head to the side, staring at him with a puzzled look on her face. On his third attempt, she rushed at him and shoved him up against the wall, shouting.

Treya separated them, nudging the girl back with one arm. Luckily, she allowed it. Treya doubted she could have forced her back if she didn't want to move—not without hitting her as hard as she had before.

Bobo said, "I don't know what I told her, but she's not happy about it. Is she saying where?"

"Where what? Is she asking where the sword is?"

"I don't know! I can't translate entire sentences when I've only understood two words, and I'm not even sure about those!" It was rare to see Bobo so flustered.

"Tell her we want to talk."

Bobo said something. The girl, in the midst of one of her tirades, stopped to listen.

"I think she understood me," he said.

She abruptly stalked over to the wall and ran her fingers across it in a pattern. The black lines in the room—the one that ran across the center of the ceiling and the ones that lined each of the walls, just above eye height—suddenly began to glow, illuminating the entire room more brightly and evenly than the mage lights Ellerie had left.

"Those are lights?" Bobo asked. "Could they do that all along? Or is it something she did?"

The black lines had appeared in nearly every tunnel and room they'd found so far. If the lights worked for anyone, it would have saved them a great deal of effort with mage lights and lanterns.

The girl stared down at the tracks she'd left in the dust on the floor. She spoke a single, sharp sentence—obviously a demand.

Bobo shook his head. "I'm still not sure. I think she said what and you and where, but I didn't catch the rest. It would help if she spoke more slowly."

"So tell her that, and let's start with something easy." Treya pointed to herself, then her friends. "Treya, Bobo, Shavala." She repeated the gesture. "Treya, Bobo, Shavala."