The sun may have been out, but if it was Tom couldn't tell: Stacey's bower had sealed tight all the ways in or out. But the air did not smell foul: quite the opposite actually, fragrant flowers provided a pleasant odor barely detectable. Instead, the air simply smelled fresh, like a morning after a spring rain.
Tom felt his footing rock a bit, sending his heart racing as he thought of earthquakes or demons below digging underneath and collapsing the floor to get at him! He almost reached for his power when he realized that it was only Mausi shifting.
He flew off, only just missing her hand coming up to scratch her head!
She yawned widely, looking pleased, when she opened her eyes and caught sight of the bower walls. She froze, still with her mouth open and her arm raised. Tom felt the mirth bubble inside him, she looked hilarious! He started to chuckle, then it grew into a laugh, until he roared with amusement!
Stacey had fallen when Mausi shifted, and she flew up with a wry smile on her face as she rubbed her tender bottom.
"Morning." She said, kissing him and stopping his laughter.
"Morning!" Tom replied with gusto after she released him. His head swam and he felt giddy again. It had been far too long since she'd kissed him! Why on earth hadn''t he gone for the kiss first?
"What is this?!" Mausi gasped, interrupting his thoughts.
"It's called 'kissing',"" Tom said half-annoyed and half-amused still. "But I'm not going to introduce you to the art!"
A smack on the head was his reward. "Don't be rude!" Stacey scolded.
Mausi might have flushed, but it was impossible to tell under her fur! She certainly acted embarrassed, clearing her throat and holding her head in that slightly sheepish tilt people adopt when they've realized they'd been foolish.
"That's not what I mean." She muttered. "I really meant......this!" she gestured around them, at a loss for words.
"Oh, that! Well, we had some guests try and invite themselves to dinner last night, but we didn't feel like letting them in! So we closed the door firmly in their faces and left them scratching and whining on the step while we slept to wait on the day."" Tom said airily, seeing a chance for some fun.
It was every bit he hoped for! Mausi looked like someone had hit her in the snout with a hammer: she went cross-eyed a moment, a disbelieving look slowly melting into awe and even some fear.
Tom felt a flicker of last night's attack cross his memory, and he paused to focus on it. Realizing what he had noticed, he looked at Mausi, no longer smiling.
"Odd thing about our guests, though. There were two kinds, I think. I can't be sure because of the dark, but the close-in group appeared to be Brissons, though why they couldn't get in I don't know, while there were some squat, broad shapes in the gloom looking like shadows in a shadow that stayed as far from any light as they could, but were still revealed in the starlight."
Mausi shuddered and stared at the bower, but Tom got the feeling that she wasn't looking at its wide, wood-like roots and stems, but at something in her past.
Stacey flew over to her and gently took her large hand in both of her smaller ones, a light shining in them. "Mausi," she looked up into the desert woman's as she started at the touch and peered down. "I can see that this news scares you and that must mean it's very bad, but hadn't you better tell us what we are facing? Now, before we run into it outside in the dark?"
Tom studied Mausi's intent expression, her dawning wonder and saw her relax incrementally.
"They are evil." She said quietly. "We've suffered their cruelties for as long as the People have existed. The people you saw in the distance are the chief foes, they are twisted and powerful in black magics, and can turn even the best of us into Fallen, creatures that obey their will absolutely. They have many of the same weaknesses as their foul masters, but they make up for it by being more numerous. They are constantly hungry and will eat anything and anyone they can get their claws into. Those that do not die are taken back to the dark tunnel abodes to be turned into more slaves. They do not have magic themselves and a good warrior can hold them off for a time," she shrugged modestly, flashing her teeth. "But their masters have magic and they are to be feared at all times. None can stand against them when they make an appearance.""
"How awful!" Stacey shuddered, and Tom shivered. Shame churned his belly at the light jests he had made earlier; Mausi had every right to be afraid of these creatures.
"Don't worry, Mausi." He told her quietly, "They will never be able to hurt you while we are with you."
Mausi smiled. "My father said much the same thing, until he was taken by them." She said quietly, her voice choked with some emotion.
Stacey clutched Mausi's hands tighter in sympathy, but Mausi abruptly came to herself, gently disengaged her hand, wiped her eyes, and once more became the stern, quiet desert woman again.
"We should move on, and quickly." She said emotionlessly. "They will come after us again after nightfall and the next defendable camp is many miles ahead of us.""
"Who made the camps?" Tom asked.
"My people made them for long journeys by our scouts and hunting parties that venture too close to the mountains. There are many scattered throughout the land, some made in days beyond the memory of the oldest wise-man." Mausi explained.
"Ah." Tom nodded.
They gathered up their supplies from the camp, dousing the fire before they walked right up to the place Tom remembered one of the entrances being.
Stacey touched one of the stems and whispered to it in a language like a rustling plant. Tom listened to it, enchanted by the power of such a living, vibrant language more complex than any human's. There came a creaking, cracking groan, and then an archway opened up into a short tunnel with stony sides.
They stepped outside into the light, which smarted and made them blink. Tom looked at the outside of the living bunker, noting how the plants had been mauled mercilessly in the night, the trunks of some cracked open from the constant scratching. The top of the bower stretched upwards some ten feet from the ground, and two feet higher than the stones. The walls were almost two feet thick and so tightly woven as to show no crack or seam in its construction. It looked green and alive, with hundreds of flowers that covered the surface in riots of color.
Stacey laid her hand on each and every wound the plant had suffered, healing it of its hurts. Then she murmured quietly for a time, as long thin creepers twisted round the walls and along the stems, red in color and with tall spiked thorns taller than Tom that curled and pointed outward until the shelter was protected by the sharp brambles.
"There let it stay." Stacey said tiredly as she came back to them. Her golden hair had plastered itself to her forehead from her exertions and her wings fluttered. Mausi held out her hand and she landed on it gratefully. "It will make this shelter truly safe from any group of goblins and things of that sort--they will not get through those walls, and the door will admit any friendly peoples inside."
"Marvelous!" Mausi said faintly.
They started trekking back to the river, leaving the mound far behind in the distance until it disappeared. They walked for several hours as the land rolled away, dry and brown with a cactus or two the only relief from the flat terrain. They called a halt at noon in the shade of one such plant, drinking some of their water and nibbling on biscuits and jerky. They rested for only a few minutes before wearily resuming their hike.
They had not gone far from the cactus, however, when Tom, who was flying higher up and a little ahead, noticed something on the West Bank. A circle of blackened sand some fifty paces wide, he guessed. Keeping one eye out for hawks or other birds of prey that might try fresh fairy as desert bird, he swooped down for a closer look.
The circle turned out to be the remains of a fire, and quite a large one too, judging from the ring. He wondered how anyone had managed to find enough fuel to burn in this wide, desolate land, until he saw that most of the fuel had been dried dung, with some of the woodier desert plants mixed in. There were three large, flat stones set in a circle like chairs, around which the ground appeared to be horribly disturbed. Memories of a soccer game he''d played with his high school class against the Desert Brownbucks came to him; the sands around the stadium had looked just like this area from the screaming, jumping, excited parents and friends of the players. But this wasn't caused by two friendly teams, judging from the splashes of dark brown stains on one of the chairs.
Blood, Tom thought with unsettling clarity. He knew he should be scared spitless, but right then he only felt cold, not cold and scared, but cold and calm, with anger prowling the outskirts of his mental bubble, ready to rouse him to great wrath the moment it collapsed.
Tom considered the clues, and guessed that a group of people had camped here last night--the ashes were still giving off some heat--and they had come under attack. Apparently it hadn't gone well for the defenders.
He flew back to his companions, shouting and gesturing at them. They followed closely to the camp site. Mausi's face tightened as she surveyed the remains.
"What do you think happened here?" Tom asked her.
Mausi looked at the ground carefully, examining every clear print she could find in the soft ground. At times her nose hovered only an inch from the surface, but so careful was she that nothing stirred. Tom watched her crawl around on the ground, becoming more impressed with her abilities and skills with every passing second.
At last she stood up, gave her head a weary shake, and stared towards the fire.
"Three people camped here last night, caught too far from our shelter. They built as big a fire as they could to drive back the creatures; which should have worked, judging from the size of the blaze. I don't understand how it couldn''t have worked!" Worry creased her brow and echoed in her eyes.
"Don't worry about that." Tom said urgently. "What about the people, have any survived?"
Mausi shook her head. "Two were killed right away in the struggle, the third has been taken back to one of their tunnels, I should think."
"How long?" Stacey asked tersely.
"Not long, they were taken at the hour just before dawn, when the sky is preparing to lighten and the fuel they'd gathered was nearly spent." Mausi explained.
"Then we might still have time. Which way did they go? Can you tell?"
Mausi pointed westward, away from the river.
"But do not think of going." She warned. "We have too few to be able--hey! Come back!" she shouted, hurrying after them. Tom and Stacey slowed a little so that she could jog along underneath them, but they did not slow enough for her to completely catch up and dissuade them.
They'd only chased the trail for a few minutes when Mausi gave a hoarse cry of shock and grief. Tom looked back and saw a bright blue band with a feather sticking straight up like the quill of some porcupine lying on the ground where it had been cast. Mausi picked it up with trembling hands, but before Tom could do anything; shout a question, fly back to her, or urge her to continue, she sprang from the ground and bolted like a startled rabbit or a wolf that had caught the scent of wounded prey. She passed beneath them so fast Tom blinked in surprise, then raced after her himself, his wings beating as fast as they could.
Despite the speed they were flying, and they were going faster than Tom had ever gone in his life it seemed, they still didn't catch up to Mausi, though she stopped getting farther ahead.
He watched her through wind-teared eyes as she turned left and darted into the open mouth of a cave or tunnel that led back into a hill of sandstone, one of the first Tom had seen since they left the mountain.
The entrance shone red from the stone, but further in it turned black as a coal mine. He could make out the dim outlines of a right-angle turn in the passage some distance ahead, and knew that whatever lay beyond that would have no light at all shining through.
"Hurry!" Stacey shouted as she passed by, her hands glowing with light. "She'll be killed if we hesitate!"
That decided him. We can't let her go in alone, but man, oh man, I sure wish Jake was here!
It proved to be just as dark as he expected past the first turn, but as if in response to the loss of light, his entire body started to glow, starting from his wings. It was a blue glow, like the ocean in the tropical waters, crystal clear and perfect, he thought. Stacey's turned green, like that of the deepest forest canopy, or wildest untamed jungle.
The light helped them see as they passed on, and Tom was surprised to see two corpses sitting just a little way on past the turn. One had been struck so hard on the head that it had collapsed, one eye dangling uselessly from the socket while the other had been pinned straight through the heart with a powerful thrust and his body cast down on the stony floor.
"Hurry!" Stacey said at seeing the bodies. "These are just door guards! There must be far more inside."
"Half a moment!" Tom shouted at her. It did no good; she had continued flying leaving him to bring up the rear.
They had gone maybe fifty yards past the entrance when the tunnel abruptly widened, the roof disappearing some distance above their heads and the walls expanding until they could only just be seen in the bright light Stacey was exerting now. In its glare they at last could see what they faced.
The cave was roughly oval in shape, left coarse and unrefined, with lots and lots of crude shelves that served as rude beds. A largish hole in the back served as a well; it had a bucket and long chain lying carelessly wrapped next to it. Just in front of the well, near the entrance, was a square pillar of stone, four feet high, three broad and nearly six feet long. Four chains attached to manacles were mounted at the corners and was secured to the limbs of a terrified Brisson girl, held naked in their cold grasp. Surrounding her stood five goblin priests or sorcerers or whatever, each holding a ceremonial dagger with a black and jagged blade with rubies in the leather-wrapped hilts.
A commotion to his right revealed Mausi struggling towards the altar, held fast by six Fallen, while five more lay stretched cold on the floor. But it was hopeless now; her weapons had been shattered or taken from her, with the exception of a long knife that Tom could see glinting on her belt. Her constant squirming and movements had made it impossible for her enemies to take that much from her at least. But it would not be long before the girl on the altar died and Mausi put in her place, Tom thought.
Mausi certainly seemed to think so, for she was sobbing and crying "Lana! Lana!" over and over again.
"Stop!" Stacey's voice crashed like thunder in the cave, the echoes of which boomed louder still as they bounced from wall to wall and struck the entire cave dumb.
Tom found his hands were balled into fists, his heart hammered wildly in his chest, and his blood sang in his veins! He felt the reservoir of water in the well, giving him strength and power in this horrible place.
"You will not harm them!" Stacey cried, her slender form beginning to glow a pale green, nearly white, as if a star had fallen to Earth and clothed itself in fair flesh. The goblins and their slaves screamed or cursed or moaned in pain, shielding their eyes and drawing away, towards a pile of weapons near the shaft.
A splashing, gurgling roar froze them in their tracks as a column of water erupted from the dark chasm. It hit the ceiling and shattered into eight separate limbs. One limb flattened itself and ran along the stone, entrapping everyone in a thin, but strong, bubble. Two became tough blue rope, wrapping the goblins tightly across their chests and necks, squeezing like pythons coiled around their prey. Four became spears of ice, hurling themselves at the locks of the fetters, shattering the steel like eggshells. The ice melted to water in a twinkling, washing the frightened girl off the altar and carrying her along the floor until it released her in Mausi's surprised arms.
The last arm had become a bludgeon, smashing Mausi's jailors and killing them instantly. Freed, she accepted the embrace of the smaller brisson, drawing her knife and holding it defensively in front of her.
Tom reformed the water (except the bubble) into a single point no bigger than his hands. The density of this water was greater than anything found on Earth, or elsewhere, and Tom sweated with the effort to keep it stable and ready.
Stacey had not been idle while Tom worked at securing the cave. She had grown two plants that pierced Tom's bubble and tore at the stony walls, weakening them to the point of collapse. By now the only thing keeping the roof from crushing them was the surface tension of their watery shield, enhanced with Tom's magic.
They stared hard at their wretched prisoners, all of whom were writhing and fighting the ropes that held them, and snarling words in a tongue like the hissing menace of vipers about to strike and the gravelly heat and strength of molten rock.
"Will you not give up?!" Stacey snapped angrily. "You have been beaten, and if you do not, then we will leave you here to be crushed!""
Tom listened in shock as one of the priests, dressed in a black robe very unlike the others who were in shades of purple, spoke back!
"We will not give up!" he snarled. "Winged Whore! Our master is of a darker kind then your feeble imaginations can conjure! We take what we will, when we will and not you or anyone can stop us! Kneel before me and I will kill you quickly."
Stacey shook her head. "You are no longer free to take anything." She told him sternly. "And those that you've harmed we will set free, if we can, or put them out of their misery, if we cannot. But never again will you hold dominion over this Earth."
The goblin started hissing and cawing, and Tom looked at him wondering if his ropes were too tight, until he realized he was laughing!
"And what do you think you can do against us?" he asked. "We are numberless as the stars, countless as the blades of grass! You will be brought to heel before our master, and made to..." he added several more words in his own language that Tom didn't understand but made Mausi gasp and Lana shriek in terror and horror.
Tom snarled and squeezed the ropes tightly, cutting off the goblin's ability to speak.
The sun may have been out, but if it was Tom couldn't tell: Stacey's bower had sealed tight all the ways in or out. But the air did not smell foul: quite the opposite actually, fragrant flowers provided a pleasant odor barely detectable. Instead, the air simply smelled fresh, like a morning after a spring rain.
Tom felt his footing rock a bit, sending his heart racing as he thought of earthquakes or demons below digging underneath and collapsing the floor to get at him! He almost reached for his power when he realized that it was only Mausi shifting.
He flew off, only just missing her hand coming up to scratch her head!
She yawned widely, looking pleased, when she opened her eyes and caught sight of the bower walls. She froze, still with her mouth open and her arm raised. Tom felt the mirth bubble inside him, she looked hilarious! He started to chuckle, then it grew into a laugh, until he roared with amusement!
Stacey had fallen when Mausi shifted, and she flew up with a wry smile on her face as she rubbed her tender bottom.
"Morning." She said, kissing him and stopping his laughter.
"Morning!" Tom replied with gusto after she released him. His head swam and he felt giddy again. It had been far too long since she'd kissed him! Why on earth hadn''t he gone for the kiss first?
"What is this?!" Mausi gasped, interrupting his thoughts.
"It's called 'kissing',"" Tom said half-annoyed and half-amused still. "But I'm not going to introduce you to the art!"
A smack on the head was his reward. "Don't be rude!" Stacey scolded.
Mausi might have flushed, but it was impossible to tell under her fur! She certainly acted embarrassed, clearing her throat and holding her head in that slightly sheepish tilt people adopt when they've realized they'd been foolish.
"That's not what I mean." She muttered. "I really meant......this!" she gestured around them, at a loss for words.
"Oh, that! Well, we had some guests try and invite themselves to dinner last night, but we didn't feel like letting them in! So we closed the door firmly in their faces and left them scratching and whining on the step while we slept to wait on the day."" Tom said airily, seeing a chance for some fun.
It was every bit he hoped for! Mausi looked like someone had hit her in the snout with a hammer: she went cross-eyed a moment, a disbelieving look slowly melting into awe and even some fear.
Tom felt a flicker of last night's attack cross his memory, and he paused to focus on it. Realizing what he had noticed, he looked at Mausi, no longer smiling.
"Odd thing about our guests, though. There were two kinds, I think. I can't be sure because of the dark, but the close-in group appeared to be Brissons, though why they couldn't get in I don't know, while there were some squat, broad shapes in the gloom looking like shadows in a shadow that stayed as far from any light as they could, but were still revealed in the starlight."
Mausi shuddered and stared at the bower, but Tom got the feeling that she wasn't looking at its wide, wood-like roots and stems, but at something in her past.
Stacey flew over to her and gently took her large hand in both of her smaller ones, a light shining in them. "Mausi," she looked up into the desert woman's as she started at the touch and peered down. "I can see that this news scares you and that must mean it's very bad, but hadn't you better tell us what we are facing? Now, before we run into it outside in the dark?"
Tom studied Mausi's intent expression, her dawning wonder and saw her relax incrementally.
"They are evil." She said quietly. "We've suffered their cruelties for as long as the People have existed. The people you saw in the distance are the chief foes, they are twisted and powerful in black magics, and can turn even the best of us into Fallen, creatures that obey their will absolutely. They have many of the same weaknesses as their foul masters, but they make up for it by being more numerous. They are constantly hungry and will eat anything and anyone they can get their claws into. Those that do not die are taken back to the dark tunnel abodes to be turned into more slaves. They do not have magic themselves and a good warrior can hold them off for a time," she shrugged modestly, flashing her teeth. "But their masters have magic and they are to be feared at all times. None can stand against them when they make an appearance.""
"How awful!" Stacey shuddered, and Tom shivered. Shame churned his belly at the light jests he had made earlier; Mausi had every right to be afraid of these creatures.
"Don't worry, Mausi." He told her quietly, "They will never be able to hurt you while we are with you."
Mausi smiled. "My father said much the same thing, until he was taken by them." She said quietly, her voice choked with some emotion.
Stacey clutched Mausi's hands tighter in sympathy, but Mausi abruptly came to herself, gently disengaged her hand, wiped her eyes, and once more became the stern, quiet desert woman again.
"We should move on, and quickly." She said emotionlessly. "They will come after us again after nightfall and the next defendable camp is many miles ahead of us.""
"Who made the camps?" Tom asked.
"My people made them for long journeys by our scouts and hunting parties that venture too close to the mountains. There are many scattered throughout the land, some made in days beyond the memory of the oldest wise-man." Mausi explained.
"Ah." Tom nodded.
They gathered up their supplies from the camp, dousing the fire before they walked right up to the place Tom remembered one of the entrances being.
Stacey touched one of the stems and whispered to it in a language like a rustling plant. Tom listened to it, enchanted by the power of such a living, vibrant language more complex than any human's. There came a creaking, cracking groan, and then an archway opened up into a short tunnel with stony sides.
They stepped outside into the light, which smarted and made them blink. Tom looked at the outside of the living bunker, noting how the plants had been mauled mercilessly in the night, the trunks of some cracked open from the constant scratching. The top of the bower stretched upwards some ten feet from the ground, and two feet higher than the stones. The walls were almost two feet thick and so tightly woven as to show no crack or seam in its construction. It looked green and alive, with hundreds of flowers that covered the surface in riots of color.
Stacey laid her hand on each and every wound the plant had suffered, healing it of its hurts. Then she murmured quietly for a time, as long thin creepers twisted round the walls and along the stems, red in color and with tall spiked thorns taller than Tom that curled and pointed outward until the shelter was protected by the sharp brambles.
"There let it stay." Stacey said tiredly as she came back to them. Her golden hair had plastered itself to her forehead from her exertions and her wings fluttered. Mausi held out her hand and she landed on it gratefully. "It will make this shelter truly safe from any group of goblins and things of that sort--they will not get through those walls, and the door will admit any friendly peoples inside."
"Marvelous!" Mausi said faintly.
They started trekking back to the river, leaving the mound far behind in the distance until it disappeared. They walked for several hours as the land rolled away, dry and brown with a cactus or two the only relief from the flat terrain. They called a halt at noon in the shade of one such plant, drinking some of their water and nibbling on biscuits and jerky. They rested for only a few minutes before wearily resuming their hike.
They had not gone far from the cactus, however, when Tom, who was flying higher up and a little ahead, noticed something on the West Bank. A circle of blackened sand some fifty paces wide, he guessed. Keeping one eye out for hawks or other birds of prey that might try fresh fairy as desert bird, he swooped down for a closer look.
The circle turned out to be the remains of a fire, and quite a large one too, judging from the ring. He wondered how anyone had managed to find enough fuel to burn in this wide, desolate land, until he saw that most of the fuel had been dried dung, with some of the woodier desert plants mixed in. There were three large, flat stones set in a circle like chairs, around which the ground appeared to be horribly disturbed. Memories of a soccer game he''d played with his high school class against the Desert Brownbucks came to him; the sands around the stadium had looked just like this area from the screaming, jumping, excited parents and friends of the players. But this wasn't caused by two friendly teams, judging from the splashes of dark brown stains on one of the chairs.
Blood, Tom thought with unsettling clarity. He knew he should be scared spitless, but right then he only felt cold, not cold and scared, but cold and calm, with anger prowling the outskirts of his mental bubble, ready to rouse him to great wrath the moment it collapsed.
Tom considered the clues, and guessed that a group of people had camped here last night--the ashes were still giving off some heat--and they had come under attack. Apparently it hadn't gone well for the defenders.
He flew back to his companions, shouting and gesturing at them. They followed closely to the camp site. Mausi's face tightened as she surveyed the remains.
"What do you think happened here?" Tom asked her.
Mausi looked at the ground carefully, examining every clear print she could find in the soft ground. At times her nose hovered only an inch from the surface, but so careful was she that nothing stirred. Tom watched her crawl around on the ground, becoming more impressed with her abilities and skills with every passing second.
At last she stood up, gave her head a weary shake, and stared towards the fire.
"Three people camped here last night, caught too far from our shelter. They built as big a fire as they could to drive back the creatures; which should have worked, judging from the size of the blaze. I don't understand how it couldn''t have worked!" Worry creased her brow and echoed in her eyes.
"Don't worry about that." Tom said urgently. "What about the people, have any survived?"
Mausi shook her head. "Two were killed right away in the struggle, the third has been taken back to one of their tunnels, I should think."
"How long?" Stacey asked tersely.
"Not long, they were taken at the hour just before dawn, when the sky is preparing to lighten and the fuel they'd gathered was nearly spent." Mausi explained.
"Then we might still have time. Which way did they go? Can you tell?"
Mausi pointed westward, away from the river.
"But do not think of going." She warned. "We have too few to be able--hey! Come back!" she shouted, hurrying after them. Tom and Stacey slowed a little so that she could jog along underneath them, but they did not slow enough for her to completely catch up and dissuade them.
They'd only chased the trail for a few minutes when Mausi gave a hoarse cry of shock and grief. Tom looked back and saw a bright blue band with a feather sticking straight up like the quill of some porcupine lying on the ground where it had been cast. Mausi picked it up with trembling hands, but before Tom could do anything; shout a question, fly back to her, or urge her to continue, she sprang from the ground and bolted like a startled rabbit or a wolf that had caught the scent of wounded prey. She passed beneath them so fast Tom blinked in surprise, then raced after her himself, his wings beating as fast as they could.
Despite the speed they were flying, and they were going faster than Tom had ever gone in his life it seemed, they still didn't catch up to Mausi, though she stopped getting farther ahead.
He watched her through wind-teared eyes as she turned left and darted into the open mouth of a cave or tunnel that led back into a hill of sandstone, one of the first Tom had seen since they left the mountain.
The entrance shone red from the stone, but further in it turned black as a coal mine. He could make out the dim outlines of a right-angle turn in the passage some distance ahead, and knew that whatever lay beyond that would have no light at all shining through.
"Hurry!" Stacey shouted as she passed by, her hands glowing with light. "She'll be killed if we hesitate!"
That decided him. We can't let her go in alone, but man, oh man, I sure wish Jake was here!
It proved to be just as dark as he expected past the first turn, but as if in response to the loss of light, his entire body started to glow, starting from his wings. It was a blue glow, like the ocean in the tropical waters, crystal clear and perfect, he thought. Stacey's turned green, like that of the deepest forest canopy, or wildest untamed jungle.
The light helped them see as they passed on, and Tom was surprised to see two corpses sitting just a little way on past the turn. One had been struck so hard on the head that it had collapsed, one eye dangling uselessly from the socket while the other had been pinned straight through the heart with a powerful thrust and his body cast down on the stony floor.
"Hurry!" Stacey said at seeing the bodies. "These are just door guards! There must be far more inside."
"Half a moment!" Tom shouted at her. It did no good; she had continued flying leaving him to bring up the rear.
They had gone maybe fifty yards past the entrance when the tunnel abruptly widened, the roof disappearing some distance above their heads and the walls expanding until they could only just be seen in the bright light Stacey was exerting now. In its glare they at last could see what they faced.
The cave was roughly oval in shape, left coarse and unrefined, with lots and lots of crude shelves that served as rude beds. A largish hole in the back served as a well; it had a bucket and long chain lying carelessly wrapped next to it. Just in front of the well, near the entrance, was a square pillar of stone, four feet high, three broad and nearly six feet long. Four chains attached to manacles were mounted at the corners and was secured to the limbs of a terrified Brisson girl, held naked in their cold grasp. Surrounding her stood five goblin priests or sorcerers or whatever, each holding a ceremonial dagger with a black and jagged blade with rubies in the leather-wrapped hilts.
A commotion to his right revealed Mausi struggling towards the altar, held fast by six Fallen, while five more lay stretched cold on the floor. But it was hopeless now; her weapons had been shattered or taken from her, with the exception of a long knife that Tom could see glinting on her belt. Her constant squirming and movements had made it impossible for her enemies to take that much from her at least. But it would not be long before the girl on the altar died and Mausi put in her place, Tom thought.
Mausi certainly seemed to think so, for she was sobbing and crying "Lana! Lana!" over and over again.
"Stop!" Stacey's voice crashed like thunder in the cave, the echoes of which boomed louder still as they bounced from wall to wall and struck the entire cave dumb.
Tom found his hands were balled into fists, his heart hammered wildly in his chest, and his blood sang in his veins! He felt the reservoir of water in the well, giving him strength and power in this horrible place.
"You will not harm them!" Stacey cried, her slender form beginning to glow a pale green, nearly white, as if a star had fallen to Earth and clothed itself in fair flesh. The goblins and their slaves screamed or cursed or moaned in pain, shielding their eyes and drawing away, towards a pile of weapons near the shaft.
A splashing, gurgling roar froze them in their tracks as a column of water erupted from the dark chasm. It hit the ceiling and shattered into eight separate limbs. One limb flattened itself and ran along the stone, entrapping everyone in a thin, but strong, bubble. Two became tough blue rope, wrapping the goblins tightly across their chests and necks, squeezing like pythons coiled around their prey. Four became spears of ice, hurling themselves at the locks of the fetters, shattering the steel like eggshells. The ice melted to water in a twinkling, washing the frightened girl off the altar and carrying her along the floor until it released her in Mausi's surprised arms.
The last arm had become a bludgeon, smashing Mausi's jailors and killing them instantly. Freed, she accepted the embrace of the smaller brisson, drawing her knife and holding it defensively in front of her.
Tom reformed the water (except the bubble) into a single point no bigger than his hands. The density of this water was greater than anything found on Earth, or elsewhere, and Tom sweated with the effort to keep it stable and ready.
Stacey had not been idle while Tom worked at securing the cave. She had grown two plants that pierced Tom's bubble and tore at the stony walls, weakening them to the point of collapse. By now the only thing keeping the roof from crushing them was the surface tension of their watery shield, enhanced with Tom's magic.
They stared hard at their wretched prisoners, all of whom were writhing and fighting the ropes that held them, and snarling words in a tongue like the hissing menace of vipers about to strike and the gravelly heat and strength of molten rock.
"Will you not give up?!" Stacey snapped angrily. "You have been beaten, and if you do not, then we will leave you here to be crushed!""
Tom listened in shock as one of the priests, dressed in a black robe very unlike the others who were in shades of purple, spoke back!
"We will not give up!" he snarled. "Winged Whore! Our master is of a darker kind then your feeble imaginations can conjure! We take what we will, when we will and not you or anyone can stop us! Kneel before me and I will kill you quickly."
Stacey shook her head. "You are no longer free to take anything." She told him sternly. "And those that you've harmed we will set free, if we can, or put them out of their misery, if we cannot. But never again will you hold dominion over this Earth."
The goblin started hissing and cawing, and Tom looked at him wondering if his ropes were too tight, until he realized he was laughing!
"And what do you think you can do against us?" he asked. "We are numberless as the stars, countless as the blades of grass! You will be brought to heel before our master, and made to..." he added several more words in his own language that Tom didn't understand but made Mausi gasp and Lana shriek in terror and horror.
Tom snarled and squeezed the ropes tightly, cutting off the goblin's ability to speak.
Stacey, in contrast, stood up straighter; her light shone forth, this time tinged with gold, banishing all the shadows and casting the wretches in stark light.
"We are old." She told him fiercely. "Older than your limited imagination can guess. We fought the first Great Demon Lord and smote his ruin in the muddy banks of the lake. There are none today that are as powerful as him, or this world would already be firmly held in evil and all light and hope extinguished! If your master dares stick his nose out of his hole then we will break him! And you and your kind will become his toys and sole companions in the long dark, for fear of our wrath!"
The goblin cursed at her and managed, somehow, to get his clawed hand under his robe. A sickly black fireball shot straight towards Stacey, splashing black fire on the green shield she placed in front of herself, driving her back with a cry.
Seeing the attack and hearing her startled scream, Tom lost all reasoning. The waters hissed in steam, boiling the creatures even as they screamed in pain and agony, trying to get rid of their now torturous bindings. Tom did not let them, however. Even as the steam began to overcome them, Tom created a wave of water as high as the ceiling but cool and gentle, that swept the protesting Stacey, shrieking Lana and shouting Mausi out the door and into the sunshine.
Left alone now, Tom rushed towards the goblin priest, stumbling to his feet by some terrible act of will. He charged towards Tom, opening his mouth as if he intended to eat him whole! Tom shot up and over his head, striking downward with his fist and releasing the magic he held in one swift instant. The resounding smack knocked the goblin over and sent him sprawling; right next the pile of weapons. He grasped a sword and got upright, pointing it at Tom with a grin.
Tom held forth his hand. Blue magic shone bright in front of him, fading slowly to reveal a full-length sword floating in front of him, held by some ghostly hand. The blade was deep blue-green of the sea, the hilt was of silver froth from the waves, the gem at the pommel the sapphire of deep lakes untouched by wind or wave, and the guard was etched with great waves. Tom marveled at the sword--it felt so alive to him, he could see it shine in his eyes like a living thing--and then, setting himself for battle, he charged the goblin priest!
The two swords rang as they struck! Time and again they tolled as each opponent strove to master the other.
He's quick! I've got to be quicker, or I'm done for! Tom felt the sweat bead on his brow as he parried blow after blow from the goblin. He felt pleased to see streaks of water dampen his opponent's robes, and he pushed for all he was worth.
Suddenly, the goblin stumbled over the legs of one of his dead companions. The momentary distraction proved to be enough, and Tom's sword ran the creature through the heart. The goblin gave a gasping cry, gurgled, and fell, dead, with Tom's sword sticking straight up in the air, and its own lying broken on the ground.
Feeling more tired than ever before in his life, Tom left the cave wearily, the bubble collapsing behind him along with the roof, burying its occupants under tons of earth.
There let them stay, and may nothing ever find out what has happened here until we are back home, Tom thought. He didn't think it would be a good idea to let their enemies know of their awakening, not just yet. Not until the colony was established and their defenses made strong.
As he walked away, he marveled at the power he'd shown in the cave. He'd known he was decent with magic, not as powerful as Serena, or as strong as Jake perhaps, but of decent sort. He'd felt woefully inadequate at the battle of the city when he was faced with ranks of demons and other foul folk, but now he felt that he could have contributed far more than he had.
He was still contemplating what had happened as he stepped out into the light. The bright sun made his eyes blink and he lifted his hand in annoyance to shade his eyes.
Once his eyes adjusted he found Stacey hovering over Lana and Mausi. The former was still clutching Mausi tight around her middle and sobbing quietly, and Mausi appeared to be faring little better. What they were trying to say to each other, Tom wasn't sure, but he thought that they couldn't understand one another either.
Now that they were in good lighting, Tom could get a better look at Lana. The first thing he saw was that she wasn't a wolf, but appeared to be a fox! She had deep red fur, painted black at the tips of her ears as well as her hands and feet, with a white-tipped tail. She stood only a little smaller than Mausi, but something about her screamed ""child" to him. Well, not a child, he amended silently, looking at her thick arms and deep scratches as well as her small, but developed, breasts, but a teenager that wasn't quite ready to become an adult just yet.
Stacey, seeing it would be no good yet to interrupt them or even offer aid in any way, flitted over to him.
"Any idea who she is?" Tom asked her.
Stacey shook her head, the slightly annoyed look on her face triggering a slight chuckle from him. "Not yet." She looked at him, aggrieved. "They haven''t become coherent yet, other than a word here or there that I can make out. One of them is 'sister' though, and they keep repeating that one over and over."
She turned back to the other women. "Do you think?" she asked.
Tom shrugged. "I don't know about Brisson biology to say yeah or nay." he muttered, half-strangled. His face felt on fire as old movies that he never should have watched flooded his consciousness. It wasn't as if he didn't have a clue how sex worked, dammit! After all, they'd showed just such a film in school for sex ed, so why should he feel so ill at ease??
"I think," he said slowly, struggling to master himself. "That they are likely to be adopted. Both look purebred, if I may be excused for using the term, without features reminiscent of a different race. But that's just my thought on the matter."
"Just what I was thinking." Stacey admitted to him. "There is a story here, one worth listening too, but that must wait. Indeed,"" she added, raising her voice to include the brissons, who looked up at her. "There is much to learn from this, but we have no time. We must do what we can now, and listen on our journey. Mausi! Have you any spare clothes for our friend here?"
"Yes, of course." Mausi said, discomfited that she hadn't noticed her sister's nakedness perhaps.
"Good. Let us get her dressed and the dirt and things brushed out of her fur. She can warm herself in the sun as we work and then while we walk she can tell us who she is and how she ended up in that horrible cave."
Stacey's will was overpowering, and everyone found themselves obeying. A bone-handle comb was pulled from Mausi's bag and Lana found herself being brushed by the older Brisson while both sat under Stacey's stern gaze. The scene reminded Tom of an old movie where a governess had been lovingly teaching a pair of wayward boys to behave and work on their lessons.
When Lana's fur had been brushed out, Mausi's spare clothes were gotten and put on her, and adjustments made so they would fit. Tom, meanwhile, busied himself at the cave entrance, not daring to turn towards the scene behind him, and concentrating on refilling their water bags. When he'd finished that chore, he lay in the shadow of a boulder and let his lethargy carry him off to sleep.
In the end, with only five hours delay on the whole adventure, they returned to the riverbed and kept moving along it towards the mountains ahead.
The group had moved steadily, thanks to Mausi and Lana. Tom knew he had been tired, but was shocked at his weakness when he flew. He'd been so slow, that Mausi had plucked him easily out of the air and put him on her shoulder to ride. Stacey had settled down on her other shoulder, watching him closely.
I'm fine, he'd wanted to tell her, but he'd been too tired to do so. He'd only realized he'd fallen asleep again when he was woken by Mausi stumbling over a river stone.
The sun had moved far overhead and down on its endless journey through the heavens, and Tom knew they would have only a few hours before they would be forced to camp. No one had talked since the affair at the cave ended and his curiosity would be denied no longer.
After all, she can walk and talk at the same time, and it would probably be good for her, to help her work through what happened, he reasoned.
Lana wasn't far away, walking steadily next to Mausi as they trudged along.
"So, Lana." He spoke. Whoa! He was interrupted from saying anything else as Mausi jumped in surprise! Evidently, she'd thought he'd stayed asleep. Once she settled down and he'd regained his composure he continued, ignoring the giggles coming from Mausi's other shoulder and the slight grin on Lana's face.
"As I was saying, I gathered earlier that you know our guide slightly?"
The shoulder he rode on shook again as Mausi laughed.
"Mausi, please stop. I'm about to fall off!" Tom snapped irritably, trying to hold on.
"Sorry, Tom." Mausi apologized sheepishly.
"Well, to answer your question, Lana is my sister."
"Adopted?" He asked.
She looked at him strangely for a long moment. "You might call it that." She said at length. "But I do not. She is my sister, one of my blood now, regardless of who carried her first."
"My apologies." Tom ducked his head slightly. "Adoptions are, or were really, a common thing where I come from. It's good to see that you take them so seriously."
"How sad." Mausi said at last. "Adoptions should never be easy, for you are accepting someone as blood, a son or daughter or sister or brother.""
"You're right Mausi." Stacey said. "But please continue your tale.""
"All right. Many seasons ago, when I was a small girl, we became embroiled in a bitter war with the goblins. They had decided to wipe out the line of Greglin, the leader of the fox people, and all of his kin with him. It was accomplished in four moon phases, despite all our warriors and allies could do. Almost every last foxsci was destroyed or taken as slaves to the goblins, but Lana and her brother and a small handful of children we smuggled out of the camps."
Her voice turned fond. "I was given charge of Lana and her brother when they came to our tents. I bathed them and fed them and changed them, for they were but babes in arms at that time. I comforted them when they cried, and fed them when they were hungry...those were good times for us, and I broached the subject with my mother and father about adopting them. We went to the Wiseman and they helped us perform the ritual, making them blood."
She turned grim and her hands balled into fists, shaking Tom's seat a little. "One evening, well into my teenager years when Lana and Bimisi were just children, the goblins attacked us in full force. Many of our warriors were slain and many children."" Her voice turned cold with tears. "My father and Bimisi were killed that night, while my older half-brother and I could only watch helpless to stop it. We drove off the enemy with a charge that killed their chief, and they fled shrieking into the night. The rest of the children left our village the next day, for we were too few to protect them, except my sister Lana." She finished.
"I am sorry for your loss." Tom and Stacey said at the same time.
"It is not necessary. I came to terms with it long ago." Mausi said brusquely.
"Well, we have heard Mausi's tale, so perhaps you can tell us yours now, Lana?" Tom asked.
Lana stumbled slightly and corrected herself, looking hesitant. She glanced questioningly at Mausi.
"It's all right, sister." Mausi told her. "They are my friends from the Mountain of the Sleeping God."
Tom was pretty sure that Mausi had said the last part deliberately, perhaps with a bit of sibling mischief, hoping to force a reaction. If so, then she certainly got what she wished for!
Lana, upon hearing those words, whipped around suddenly to stare in shocked amazement. However, her movements made her off balance and she cartwheeled as her feet slipped on a pebble and she fell hard against the sandy bank.
"Mausi, that wasn't nice." Stacey chided as she flew over to Lana.
"Sorry sis." Lana said none-too-contritely as she helped the other woman up. Tom was certain that if Lana'd been human she''d be blushing redder than a tomato.
"Don't worry." Tom told her gently. "You''ll see it yourself soon enough. It's a very safe place."
Lana looked unsure of that, but she left it alone. Instead, she began to explain why she had been out so far from the camp. Apparently, word had gotten back to them that Red Dog had done as expected and said that the entire expedition had come to a sticky end in quicksand near the mountain. Lana couldn't believe that her sister could fall prey to anything out in the desert that wasn''t related to the monsters, so she left with two of her friends to find out the truth. They traveled in a wide circle around the mountain--still believing in the old tales--and had approached from the north, seeking clues. They''d come upon some tracks that she thought might have been made by a small party going towards the mountains, so they pursued. But they realized they'd made a terrible mistake by going along the tracks, because they'd gotten caught in the open with no shelter at hand when the waning moon had at last gone away. They'd built a massive fire and hoped that its light would be enough to keep evil at bay, but this time the monsters had come right up to the light, grabbing her friends as they battled at the edge. One was killed outright, the other, Ashkii, being strong, had killed several of the fallen but was himself wounded very badly. Then one of the fallen came up behind him and clubbed him unconscious and carried him away into the night.
Alone, she'd stood closest to the fire nursing her wounds and wondering what to do next. The dawn would not be far off and that was her only hope. She waited.
But the goblins would not give her that time. Only an hour before the sun was to rise, with her fuel run out and the blaze starting to dwindle, they attacked. The goblins hurled spells at the fire that turned it black, to her amazement. She fought in the dim light, but it was hopeless. There three dozen at least, and she wept to see one of them was Ashkii, turned to their devices.
Overwhelmed, she found herself weaponless and carried away towards the cave. Along the way she lost her headband, which Mausi later found. Inside the cave she was taken to the altar and stripped naked. The Goblins danced and jeered while around them the fallen murmured and started to sleep.
Then the goblin priest came up to her and croaked in her ear.
"See? You cannot escape your fate. When you last faced us you were but a child, but now you are a woman grown in all but name." His breath had been fetid and foul, and she shuddered at the lecherous tone.
"Yet perhaps you do not wish to become a fallen? That is okay, it is not for everyone in the Great One's service. If you accept us as your masters willingly, then you will become a valuable slave to us! Pampered and cared for, and all you have to do,"" his voice dropped to what he, no doubt, thought a seductive tone, though in actuality it was cruel and terrible facsimile of it, as he stroked a claw down her body to the tip of her breast as she shivered and gasped, "Is accept your role in life."
She spat at him and he recoiled. "Very well." He told her furiously. "If that is your choice!"
At that, he drew his blade and the chanting priests grew louder as they drew in. Terror grew in her heart as she struggled against her bindings, feeling helpless as the point of the knife quivered above her heart.
Then a commotion at the door disturbed the priest, and she saw her sister charge through the entrance, killing Ashkii who'd just jumped up from the floor where he'd been lying. Four more fell to her whirring spear, but the last one had some form of armor on him, which shattered her spear and shook her arm. That was all the distraction needed for them to take her.
"Hold her!" The priest commanded. "She will be ours, willingly or no, this night!"
"NO!" Lana cried in despair, but she was drawn back to her own plight as the priest grabbed her jaw and forced her to look up at the knife that was drawing close to her.
"STOP!" She heard a new voice command and, unwillingly, she found her gaze drawn towards it.
"And that's how we arrived." Tom finished.
"Yes." Lana nodded.
"Well, that's a tale and no mistake!" Stacey commented. "It''s a pity we weren't closer to you last night, we could have helped!"
"Probably, but we didn't know; and we were under attack ourselves." Tom reminded her. "We've at least managed to rescue Lana, and that will have to be enough. We need to keep moving."
"Where are you going?" Lana asked.
"To the mountains." Tom explained. "There we hope to find why the river is dry and unblock it, if we can."
Lana shook her head mournfully. "The mountain is crawling with dangers." She warned. "My people do not go near the mountains, if we can help it.""
"There are dangers everywhere, it seems." Tom pointed out. "But the mountains will hold the water we need, in their snowpacks and glaciers, and we will have to be the ones to redirect it to where we need."
"If you say so." She said doubtfully.