Embers at Galdrilene (25 page)

T
he sky showed only a pale hint of gray on the eastern horizon as they stood next to their horses waiting for Emallya. Maleena felt a twinge of anxiety when she looked at the lake, its shore only a few short feet from where she stood.

They’d spent three days next to the little spring while Emallya prepared her for her part in entering the lake. Though the days had passed quickly, taken up by working with Emallya, sparring, and conversation, the nights were different. The whisperings of the lake disturbed her dreams and the young dragon in her mind. She hadn’t slept well since arriving at the lake.

She wanted to rub her temples and ease the growing ache in her head. So much tension emanated from the people around her the effort to keep their emotions at bay made her head throb. Mckale moved to stand closer to her. The pressure in her head lessened, as if he somehow blocked the emotions of the others. She didn’t understand it, but she was grateful for it.

She watched as Emallya knelt on the shore of the lake, reached her hand out and touched a single fingertip to the water’s surface. Something silver pooled under her fingertip and with it, she traced the lines of several symbols on the surface of the lake. Silver spread rapidly across the water until the entire surface appeared to glitter with it, while underneath, the indigo of the water deepened.

Emallya stood. “Now we may enter. Maleena, go ahead and take control of the minds of the horses. They will not willingly walk any closer than they are now and certainly not into the water. I cannot help you with this. All my effort will be devoted to keeping us from being swept away and on course. If I fail and my spirit is taken all of you will be unshielded and unprotected from the pull of the lake and the future of this world will be left in the hands of the Benduiren.”

Maleena reached out to each of the horses, firmly taking hold of their minds. She nodded to let the other woman know she was ready. Emallya looked at the group, took a deep breath and started into the lake, her horse following her as if in a trance.

Maleena entered the water next. It wasn’t cold or hot. It didn’t feel wet, it didn’t feel like water at all. She glanced down. The hem of her dress wasn’t floating. It hung as if she stood on dry ground. Not a ripple disturbed the glass like surface. She continued farther into the lake. The water rose around her chest. She stopped next to Emallya. They stood at the edge where the shallows ended and the bottom dropped off to unknown depths.

The others came to stand in a line on either side of them. Mckale stood to her right, Emallya to the left. For a moment it was all she could do to hold the minds of the horses. They knew this was a doorway to death and their every instinct fought her. When she felt sure none could break past her mental control she looked at Emallya and asked, “What now?”

When the older woman spoke her voice sounded strained. “We step forward. You must wait, Maleena, until everyone else has gone or you will lose the horses.”

Serena looked out at the silver-blue water. “Are we supposed to swim?”

Emallya shook her head. “You cannot swim in these waters. When you step forward, you will sink.”

Vaddoc glanced at her, a wary expression on his face. “How far do we sink?”

“Until we reach the other side,” she answered.

Kellinar held the reins to his horse in a white knuckled grip, fear plain on his face. “What are we supposed to do about breathing?”

“There is nothing to do about it,” Emallya said and stepped forward. She and her horse both immediately sank without creating a single ripple on the surface of the water.

Kirynn eyed the spot where Emallya disappeared. She took several deep breaths “Might as well get it over with.” She sucked in another deep breath and holding it, stepped forward.

Kellinar cursed and surged after them with Loki on his heels. Vaddoc and Serena both moved at the same time. When they sank out of sight, Maleena took a deep breath and looked at Mckale. “You should go.”

Mckale looked down at her, his silver eyes steady on hers. “We will go together.”

“If you are even a step behind me, I will lose the hold I have on your horse.”

“Then I better stay right with you.”

She sensed the resolve in him and sighed. “Fine, but if you lose Blain, don’t blame me.” They stepped forward together and the water rushed over her head.

A void enveloped her, blinding her senses. She existed in a world with no sound, no sight, no feeling. She couldn’t feel her hand to know if she still held the reins of her horse. She tried to take a breath. Nothing moved in or out of her lungs.

Terror spread through her. Again she tried to breathe. Nothing happened. Her lungs burned with the need to expel the stale air and take in fresh. She reached for Mckale and found nothing. She cast her mind out to Emallya and found the same emptiness. Her head swam. Terror turned to blind panic. She was going to die here in this place of nothing.

She fell out of the water and landed hard. The air rushed out of her and she lay on the ground, sucking deep ragged breaths into her tortured lungs.

She pushed herself into a sitting position and looked around. Mckale, breathing heavily, climbed to his feet. Serena wiped vomit from her chin as she coughed and sputtered. Loki kneeled behind her, his small body heaving as he lost his morning meal. Kirynn, her face ashen, stood off to one side, her mouth clamped shut as if she too might vomit. Vaddoc looked unsteady on his feet.

Kellinar sat with a hand on his chest as he breathed in and out. Maleena glanced at the horses. They stood bunched together, shaking and sweating, their eyes rolling so the whites showed. Only Emallya seemed unaffected.

Maleena looked beyond her companions and her stomach lurched. A heavy mist, full of shifting shadows, blanketed the landscape. Only the area around them remained clear as if something held the fog back. She almost wished she couldn’t see what was visible in the cleared space. Everything looked strange and distorted and slid unnervingly when she tried to look around. A thread of silver as wide as her hand ran along the ground and disappeared into the mist. It was the only thing that didn’t shift or slide.

A slight shimmer caught the edge of her vision and she looked to her left. Her eyes widened as she took in the lake. It stood by itself in the grass a small distance from them, balanced on its edge like a big blue disk. She swallowed hard. “It almost looks like you could walk right around it.”

Emallya followed her gaze. “You could though it would do you no good to try to cross back through. For us it is a one way door.”

Kirynn walked over to the disk, moving slowly, carefully, as if afraid she might lose her balance, the contents of her stomach, or both. She reached out and touched it, then pulled her hand back. “It feels like glass.”

Serena studied it for a moment. “It reminds me of a plate standing on its edge.”

Emallya nodded. “An apt description. Here, it is nothing more than a pretty blue disk.”

Kellinar croaked, “But it’s on its
side
.”

“I told you last night, things are very different here,” Emallya said.

Kirynn walked back to them in the same careful fashion, her eyes on the ground right in front of her feet.

Mckale groaned and closed his eyes. “Why do things keep sliding around?”

Emallya took hold of her horse and ran a soothing hand down its sweaty neck. “This is Maiadar, the realm of the dead, or rather the very threshold of it. It encompasses all worlds and none. Time and distance have no meaning here.”

Mckale opened his eyes a fraction and looked at her. “Maiadar is a
legend
.”

Emallya nodded. “As you can see it is a true one.”

Maleena rubbed her head. Thousands of whisperings filled the mist around them. It reminded her of what she’d heard during the nights by the lake. An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Her skin prickled. It felt like a thousand pairs of eyes watched them. She cleared her throat. “Am I the only one who can hear voices whispering?”

“No,” Serena said. “I can hear them, too. They are all around us.”

Kirynn gave the barest nod of her head. “I can hear them.”

“We all can,” Emallya said. “It has been over five hundred years since the living have walked among the dead. They are curious.”

“Will they harm us?” Vaddoc asked, his voice cracking. His expression didn’t show the deep dread Maleena felt rolling off of him.

“No, they will not harm us. There have been a few driven mad by the whispering or by the shifting view. I am sure all of you are stronger than that.”

“I can’t hear the Dragon Song,” Maleena whispered. The place in her mind where the spirit of the young dragon usually resided, felt strangely empty.

Emallya checked the girth on her saddle. “You have left the world of the living, it cannot reach you here.”

Inexplicable desolation enveloped Maleena. “Will the eggs grow dark? Do they think we are dead?”

“Though you are not in the world of the living, you are not dead. The young dragons in their eggs will still hear an echo of you. When we leave this place, you will hear the song again.”

“This is too flaming confusing.” Kellinar scowled at the mists around them. “Can we please get on with whatever it is we are supposed to do so we can get out of here?”

Emallya nodded and swung into her saddle. “Yes, let us be done with it. It requires all of my powers to bind my spirit to me. We must be out of here before my strength wanes.”

Maleena climbed to her feet, and moved to her horse. Everything around her slid. Even the mist shifted. Black trees, wavering as if distorted by heat waves, sometimes stood covered in silver leaves, yet when she looked again, the branches were bare.

The trees and even clumps of grass a few feet away slid. Some moved farther away, others closer and still others from one side to another, all at the same time. Every time her eyes moved the world around her shifted. Her stomach heaved and she worked to keep it settled. Somewhere behind her someone retched.

At first, Maleena had her hands so full with her mare’s balking and spooking, she had little time to dwell on the discomfort of the situation. In front of her, Vaddoc’s horse half reared and snorted, white froth flying from its muzzle. Serena struggled to control her mount, the small horse breaking into a gallop and then stopping so fast Serena nearly lost her seat. Eventually exhaustion overtook the animals and they plodded along, their heads hanging in defeat.

As they rode, the clear space in the mist moved with them and once the horses settled it didn’t take long for the discomfort to creep back in. Pale, washed out light came from everywhere and nowhere. The landscape held only endless mists, black trees with their flickering silvery leaves, voices that whispered words just beyond understanding, and the disconcerting shifting.

The only constant was the silver thread they followed. In her mind, Maleena clung to the silver thread like a drowning person clings to a lifeline. Somehow, the line connected them to the real world. Terror gripped her heart at the thought of losing sight of it.

Occasionally the view was broken by another disk like the one they came through. They even saw one that floated several feet above the ground, but the thread didn’t go near them and they passed by each one. Time faded away. Maleena had no idea how long they traveled, how far they’d come, or even if it was morning or evening. No one suggested they stop to eat even when she was sure time for the mid-day meal had long passed. She doubted any of them could stomach the thought of food.

Emallya equated the movement with the feeling of being on a small boat in high seas except the ground under their feet never actually moved, just everything around them. Maleena didn’t care what it was like, she was miserable. Her stomach churned and lurched with every step, her head pounded with the emotions of those around her, and she was exhausted from both.

She tried to suppress the seed of fear growing inside her. She could feel all of her companions around her, except Emallya. To Maleena, the older woman seemed to fade in and out. One moment the woman faded the way color fades from the sky as the sun sets, becoming translucent and ghostly. Then something moved in the mist, something that felt familiar and when it came close, Emallya’s strength and form returned.

Maleena rode up close to her. “Are you alright?”

Emallya gave her a tight nod. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to hang on, but I am managing.”

“Do we have much farther to go?”

“Not much.”

Maleena sighed. “It feels like we have been riding for hours.”

Emallya nodded again. “We have.”

Maleena glanced at the surrounding mist and promptly returned her eyes to the pommel of her saddle. “There is something in the mist that follows us.”

“Yes. It is Rylin. Here, we are connected again. Here, I can feel her and she can lend me strength. She helps to maintain the thread that leads us to our destination and she helps to shield all of us from the pull of Maiadar. It is not something I thought possible. I did not think I would ever feel Rylin again until my own spirit joined hers here.” Emallya’s voice cracked at the last word with barely restrained sorrow.