Dark Mage (Avalon: Web of Magic, Book 11) (14 page)

Snarling, she staggered to her feet. Nothing was going to harm her packmates while she had even an ounce of strength to fight.

The spark raged into a flame, filling the cave with slivers of light. Power rushed though Adriane like a raging river. Throwing back her head, she howled and let the wolf inside run free.

In a flash of silver, Adriane dissolved into mist.

Whipping past the shadow dragon’s claws, she dove into the beast, wrapping herself around its pulsing, crystalline heart. Dark magic twisted through her every molecule, crackling like lightning as she wrenched the power crystal away.

The cave went suddenly, eerily quiet.

“Where did it go?”
Gwyx cried, his frightened eyes darting around the cavern.

The shadow dragon had vanished!

Through heightened wolf eyes, Adriane surveyed the cave. Dreamer stood by her side. Drake sat next to Gwyx, looking dazed. There was no sign of the fearsome shadow beast.

“It needed the power crystal to stay alive,” she said, gasping with the effort of morphing back into solid human form. She felt weird, as if her physical body no longer anchored her, as if she was in deep space, floating away into blackness.

“Packmate.”
Dreamer stared up at her, his gaze moving left and right, not quite finding her eyes.

Gwyx stepped forward, stretching his wings.
“You can come out now, human Adriane. I have slain the shadow dragon!”

“You didn’t slay anything, and I’m right here.”

“No you’re not.”
Dreamer’s emerald eyes flashed with fear.

Startled, Adriane looked down at her hands and feet. She could only see a faint ghost-like outline of her body.

“The magic is inside you,”
Dreamer said.

Adriane stared in horror at the power crystal. It throbbed in the center of her chest, beating like a black heart, pulsing shadow magic through her veins. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried again to turn back to solid form.

After a few seconds, she took a deep breath, opened her eyes and held her hand in front of her face. She could see the dragons and Dreamer right through her invisible hand.

“I—I ’m stuck.”

Dreamer circled her, trying to help her with his magic.
“You can’t stay in mist form, it’s too dangerous!”

A memory struck Adriane, and she gulped. The Dark Sorceress had nearly exterminated the mistwolves by trapping them in mist form. If she couldn’t turn solid again soon, both she and the power crystal would drift away into nothingness. Time was critical.

She cried out as the black magic tightened its grip. It would take all her strength to fight the crystal. And it wasn’t a fight she could win.

“Dreamer, what do I do?” Panic twisted her stomach.

“We must run the Spirit Trail to Packhome,”
Dreamer declared.
“We need the full power of the pack to help you
.”

“Well, I’ll just leave you to your little problems.”
Gwyx strutted toward the mouth of the cave.
“I’ve completed my quest, and I must return home to tell the elders that I have saved everyone.”

Suddenly Drake rushed after Gwyx.
“I will accompany you.”

“Excellent!”
Gwyx stopped in mid step.
“You can bear witness to my daring exploits.”

Adriane tried to steady herself. “Are you sure, Drake?”

“Of course. I cannot travel on the Spirit Trail.”
Drake swished his long tail.

Adriane had been forced to let her first bonded wolf, Stormbringer, go to find her pack. It looked like Drake had the same opportunity now that he, too, knew there were others of his kind.

“Just let me do the talking,”
Gwyx advised. “
I wouldn’t want you to stick your tail in your mouth the first time you met the elders.”

“Agreed.”
Drake nodded.

“And I wouldn’t mention anything about being bonded to all these humans.”

“I will say nothing about the girl.”
Drake’s yellow eyes swept over the space where Adriane stood.
“Mama.”

Adriane snarled as the dark power writhed inside her. She couldn’t take Drake with her, even if he’d wanted to go. “I’ll check in from Packhome.”

“Good,”
Drake approved.

“Hurry, Dreamer.” Adriane reached out to her packmate, preparing to use another of her Level Two talents. She and Dreamer were world walkers and could run the Spirit Trail, the mystical pathway of the mistwolves that would lead them to Packhome.

Dreamer stood, eyes closed, summoning the magic that would open the passage between worlds. Blue light shimmered around mistwolf and warrior as they moved from the physical world and onto the astral planes of magic.

Adriane glanced over her shoulder as the cave fell away, but Drake had already left with Gwyx. Swallowing hard, she and Dreamer stepped as one onto the ancient Spirit Trail and vanished.

“O
ZZIE!” EMILY SCREAMED
for her friend as swirling lights swam before her eyes.

“Emily, it’s okay.”

The healer blinked at the familiar voice. She suddenly realized she was leaning against something purple and soft. She took a step back and gazed into a pair of deep blue eyes.

“Indi!” She threw her arms around her paladin’s strong neck, burying her face in his soft mane. Indigo was a magnificent unicorn, created from the magic of the only living power crystal, the Heart of Avalon.

Sensing her danger, Indi must have opened a magical doorway at the bottom of the gully and pulled her to safety. Unicorns were one of the only animals that could open portals at will.

The ground beneath her swayed, throwing her off balance.

She gasped. Green pathways stretched all around her, woven together so tightly she could barely see through them. The Spider Witch’s web.

The magic of the Otherworlds clung to the web in gleaming deposits like dew. The awful truth was right before her eyes. She had connected the Otherworlds to the Spider Witch’s web.

Suddenly tears were streaming down her cheeks. The healer buried her face in Indi’s neck.

“Indi, I’ve done something terrible,” Emily cried, her words coming out in a jumble. “I connected the Otherworlds to this web, and Ozzie and Lorren, I left them, and we were attacked by a pack of shadow creatures…”

Indi leaned his head over her shoulder in a unicorn hug.
“I saw Ozzie and Lorren go through another portal.”

Emily let out a huge sigh of relief. Her friends had made it through Tweek’s portal. They were safe. She tried to steady herself as the web swayed again. Her jewel burned with the power of the Otherworld’s dark magic. She looked away, her eyes flinching against the pain.

“I have to fix it!” she blurted.

“I will help you.”
Indi’s magic rushed through her, warm and soothing. “
But you must heal yourself before you can heal others.”

Gulping back tears, Emily raised her wrist. Rainbow magic flowed from Indi’s crystal horn, entwining with her blue healing light. The magic wrapped around her body like sunlight. Slowly, her scratches and scrapes melted away, her bruises faded, and the throbbing pain in her ankle subsided, then vanished.

The Spider Witch’s magic grated against Emily as she examined the tangled web. The grid-like pattern was much more rigid than the other section of the magic web Emily had seen. Suddenly she realized what the witch had done. With the skill of a spider, she had unraveled the existing magic web and woven it into her own dark design.

Emily’s eyes widened. There was something else, a familiar silver aura underneath. The original web was still there! A bright flash of hope flared through her jewel. She’d just returned the web to its original form in the kobold’s home. As long as that magic existed, there was a chance she could undo the witch’s weaving.

But healing the entire web was an enormous task. She needed more magic.

“
Over there.”
Indi pointed his horn.

Emily squinted. A splash of glittering red bobbed on the horizon. The power crystal!

Grasping the unicorn’s mane, Emily jumped onto his back. “Let’s go!”

With a toss of his head, Indi galloped down the magical pathway, sparks flying off his hooves. Emily leaned into her paladin’s neck as he charged toward the glowing jewel.

Raising her wrist, she flung a strand of bright blue magic at the crystal, trying to ensnare it. But just as before, the power crystal floated away.

Sensing her urgency, Indi picked up speed. The unicorn leaped over strands of glowing green as he chased the power crystal along its twisting course, always just out of reach.

In a flash, it disappeared.

“Follow it!” Emily cried.

Horn blazing with power, Indi opened a portal. White light rushed past Emily as they careened through the magical doorway.

Emily pitched forward as Indi skidded to a stop, hooves scrambling at the edge of a rocky precipice. She shifted her weight back, helping her paladin regain his balance.

“What is this?” the healer breathed, wind whipping at her curls.

An enormous gorge with sheer walls gaped before them. The bottom was shrouded in thick gray mist. And in the center of the abyss, an immense castle rose on a rocky pedestal. Stone turrets curled to the gray skies like giant insect legs. There were no doors or windows. Not even a bridge to reach the castle. At least no bridge a girl and her unicorn could use. Instead, strands of glowing, green web served as bridges for hundreds of hideous spiders. They skittered back and forth like ants in a colony, each driven by its own secret purpose.

The Spider Witch’s lair.

Power pulsed from every stone of the imposing castle, as if some ancient evil were waiting to be set free from its dark interior.

There was another concentration of magic nearby, something so familiar, like a faint melody. Emily’s pulse quickened. Beneath the rays of swirling black power, she sensed it: unicorns!

“Lorelei!”
Emily used her telepathic power to call to her friend.

But there was no answer.

“The power crystal must have been drawn to the unicorns.” Emily’s heart skipped a beat.

“I can feel them!”
Indi stamped his hooves.

The Spider Witch had the missing unicorns as well as the power crystal in her clutches!

“Fiona,” Emily called, willing the tiny dragonfly to appear and send a message to Adriane, Dreamer, Kara, Lyra, and Ozzie.

But the red d-fly either couldn’t hear her or was too frightened to come near the Spider Witch’s lair.

Emily took a deep breath. It was up to them.

“Can you get us inside?” She stroked Indi’s neck.

He lowered his head, pointing his horn toward the towering castle.

Emily’s stomach flipped as her paladin leaped off the precipice. The gorge tilted below them, jagged rocks piercing the fog like teeth.

In a flash, they landed in darkness. Everything was eerily quiet.

She patted Indi to keep him still while her eyes adjusted. They were deep within the lair, its massive weight pressing down on them as if they were inside a tomb. Murky yellow crystals set in the walls illuminated a cavernous room. In the corners, pools of black swallowed the dim light.

The place may have looked deserted but Emily knew instantly it was not.

“Healer.”

Something moved in the dank shadows. Something that knew her.

Slipping from Indi’s back, Emily crept forward.

“Lorelei?”

“Come closer,”
the unicorn’s voice rasped.

Fear tingled up Emily’s spine. She recognized the voice of her unicorn friend, but something about it was off. “Are you hurt?” Emily held up her jewel, sending a beam of light into the shadows.

“Lorelei!”

Instead of the pure white unicorn that Emily knew and loved, the creature before her had transformed. Lorelei’s horn blazed with red magic, and her warm golden eyes were glazed sickly yellow. Even her snow-white coat was dull and grayish.

“What happened to you?” Emily whispered, horrified. Her stomach twisted with pain as she searched for Lorelei’s strong, pure aura. What she saw sickened her. The unicorn’s magic had been rewoven, tainted with dark red.

“Emily.”

The healer whipped around, jewel light slicing through the gloom. Dozens of unicorns, all with twisted, red magic gleaming from their proud crystal horns converged on her.

“Pollo, Riannan?” Emily reached out to the unicorn prince and princess, her eyes filled with tears.

“We have been waiting for you, healer.”

The unicorns surrounded her, their once-sparkling eyes now glowing evilly. She felt as if she would suffocate as their dark magic engulfed her.

“Lead us, dark witch.”

Frantically, Emily sent her healing magic billowing over the unicorns. But the new weaving was knotted too tight, it wouldn’t budge. Only a master weaver could have captured creatures as powerful as unicorns.

“Indi, help!” Emily cried.

“Your paladin can not help you, healer.”

Emily staggered back, horrified by the figure emerging from the shadows.

Dark hood pulled over her head, her spider body hidden by a flowing black robe, the witch slowly advanced. In her pale, veiny hands, a large crystal glowed red—the power crystal they’d been chasing! Tendrils of magic arced from the witch’s bony fingers, flaring over the unicorns and—

“Indi!” Emily screamed.

But Indi could not hear her. The mighty paladin stood transfixed as strands of sticky green webbing slithered around his body, draping over him in a darkly gleaming net. The unicorn’s bright rainbow horn swirled to red as he too fell prey to the witch’s weaving.

“No!” Emily lashed out, trying to sever the witch’s magic. But she was no match for the master weaver.

The Spider Witch’s faceted insect eyes glinted with pleasure. “Right on time, little fly.”