INBORN (The Sagas of Di'Ghon) (23 page)

“The moment he touched it the thing lit up brighter than lightning.” She swallowed. Recalling how every surface in the chamber had been carved
with a pattern that made you feel like the room was spinning wasn’t helping her fight the lurching, rolling motion of the wagon. “Then something happened that I can’t get out of my mind. The most beautiful blue wind filled the place. It came from the arches.”

Jorel grinned unbelieving
ly.

“You don’t have to believe me, but I was there. I saw everything. That dais was so bright it was hard to look at.”

“Did you say it was blue?” That was the first thing Lars Telazno said to anyone other than himself since the wagon rocked into motion. He had a weird look in his eyes. His bushy eyebrows seemed alive with nervous movement.

“Yes.” She tilted her head, wondering why the color was so important.

“You mean…” He fished through his little bag of rocks. “Like this?” The old man held up one of the rocks between his forefinger and thumb. A steady soft glow barely illuminated his hand.

“No, brighter.” She said. “It glowed a lot brighter than that.”

“I know, I’ve seen it.” The man’s face darkened a bit. “I’m getting old.” He said shaking his head. “Too old for this sort of thing. Back in my youth I wouldn’t have missed it.”

“What glow?” Jorel just sat there looking perplexed. “Whatever you two are up to I’m not falling for it.”

“Right there, you idiot.” She pointed at the radiating stone in Lars’ hand.

“He can’t see it.” The old man laughed.

“See what?” Jorel waved them off with a perturbed hand. “Whatever.”

“Why?” Elycia studied Lars Telazno’s face. “Why can’t he see it?” The man had a twinkle in his eye like he was enjoying a private joke.

Lars Telazno tossed the stone across the wagon and she caught it in her hand. The moment she touched it the thing flared to life in a brilliant shade of glowing azure.

“Only an
inborn can.” Lars Telazno smiled. “Of course, you have a different name for it. I believe the term you used, was…” He twisted his lips in recollection, “Monster?”

The truth hit her. It sank into her chest like an arrow. She knew he was right. Knew all along somehow…
She’d seen a dra. It wasn’t a drawing in a child’s story book. It was real. She’d seen Thaniel call the wind. Watched it roar into the heavens and part the skies like a hot knife through butter. She’d seen Thaniel giggle while he did it. She’d seen Ghile with the oxen’s insides dripping from his hands. She’d seen monsters. She could see them, because she was one.

Elycia felt the wagon spin. She thought she might throw up on the spot. Riding a wave of
light-headedness, darkness encroached in on her vision as she stared at the bright cerulean stone in her hand.  The ring of unconsciousness shrunk until only a pinprick of light remained.

“Oh no. Look. Her eyes rolled in the back of her head and everything.” She heard Jorel say excitedly.

“She’s fainting. Quick, catch her.” Lars Telazno ordered.

“Nope
.” Jorel answered.

Then she fainted.

We

Thaniel woke to pain needling every one of his joints. He was watching the ground fly by beneath him. Someone was carrying him over their shoulder and running at a pretty good clip. His head felt like it was bobbing on a sea of nausea.  The swaying motion his arms made didn’t help. He could taste vomit and something else awful. Something familiar…

Instantly Thaniel’s instincts kicked in. Something was very wrong. He couldn’t put it all together but he knew he was in trouble. He wanted off. Yet, try as he might to move, his arms and legs didn’t work right. He couldn’t even keep his arms from swaying with the motion of the man’s fast ga
it.

“Good morning.” Came a perfectly pitched baritone voice. The man could be a minstrel with a voice like that.

Instantly, everything came back to him in a rush of thought. He wanted to scream, to do anything, but it was like his body didn’t care what was happening to him. Ghile, a perfect Ghile, set him down on the ground and pulled out a bag of herbs. Thaniel tried to focus on the rising evergreens around them. They shot up from the ground like mammoth brown spikes threatening the blue sky. As he watched, the great pines seemed to shimmy.

“What did you give me?” Thaniel asked

“Don’t worry, that was just a temporary measure. There won’t be any need for that again.” He smiled, a perfect smile on an untwisted face. “This will help.”

Ghile poured a bitter liquid in his mouth and held his head up until he was forced to swallow or choke. Thaniel swallowed.

“Good, that’s it.” Ghile soothed as he held Thaniel’s head up straight.

A minute later he felt his body come alive. Thaniel flexed his hands and tightened them into fists. His arms and legs didn’t work yet, but he could tell that the
effect of whatever Ghile drugged him with last night was wearing off rapidly.

Thaniel tried to speak but only unintelligible sounds came out of his mouth.

As whatever he’d given him started to take effect, silence stretched. Eventually Thaniel was able to hold up his own head. He stared at his swollen ankle.

“I can take care of that.”

Ghile removed Thaniel’s boot to reveal a black and blue swollen mess of an ankle. Ghile nodded appreciatively at the wound. Then, without warning, he reached down and grabbed hold of Thaniel’s ankle, sending shockwaves of pain hurtling through his body. Ghile, the twisted half wit, was the picture of concentration. His eyes were filled with the calculation of a sharp intelligence.

Slowly a soft amber glow began to emanate from Ghile’s hand. Almost immediately
after that, heat spread into his ankle. Then, as Thaniel watched in awe, the swelling, as well as the pain just drained away. His head cleared a bit. Thaniel felt strength returning to his legs.

“Ghile?” Thaniel asked.

“Yes, it’s me.” Ghile answered, looking a little sheepish as he extended a hand down to him, “Can you stand?”

Thaniel stared at the man. Dumbfounded did not begin to describe how he felt right then. The Ghile he knew was a sorry wretch. The man before him stood erect and strong. There was a litheness about him that spoke of an immense well of strength and powerful muscles.

“I know I have a lot to explain to you. Right now is not the time. Wolves are tracking us.” He said, sniffing the air as if he could actually smell them on the breeze. “I can’t carry you much further. You will have to run if you want to live.”

Thaniel stared out into the trees as a howl echoed through the woods. It was daylight. Had Ghile carried him all night?

“We have to go.” He said, “How’s the leg?”

Thaniel couldn’t believe he was standing on the same leg he had twisted the night before. If anything, it felt better than the other one.

“Where are the others?”

“They’ll be fine for now.” He cut right to the heart of Thaniel’s concern, “I had to give them a scare to get you away from that wizard. Don’t worry. He won’t do anything to your friends, yet.”

Thaniel’s eyes went wide at that.

“There is a town not far from here. It’s the only way across the gorge for a hundred miles. I’m sure they’re headed there. We
’ll get your friends back.”

Another howl answered the first. It came from a different direction.

“I’ll explain everything on the way. We have to go.” With that Ghile turned and started running downhill.

Spooked

“The Order takes boys like you and bends them to their will.” Ghile said as he leapt over a small stream. “Once you enter the halls of the Di’Ghon Temple your life will never again be your own.” Ghile added as he waited on the other side of the small trickling brook with his hand outstretched.

Thaniel shook his head. He wasn’t going to get used to the real Ghile any time soon.
Yet, that he was a member of an elite band of agents wasn’t hard to swallow. The man had been living right in the hold for decades. No one would have guessed the twisted little man was anything like the one he had been running beside for hours now. He looked a little pale, maybe from the effort of carrying him all night, but aside from that, Ghile was hardly winded. It probably wasn’t anything a good meal and a ten minute break couldn’t remedy.

“How many times did you touch the meldstone?” He asked as he continued on ahead.

“Just a couple,” Thaniel danced around a jutting stone, “Why?”

“The meldstone is poisonous magic. It’s addictive.” Ghile leapt into the air, grasped
a low hanging branch and vaulted over a fallen tree. “The Order uses it to enslave you. It only takes a few times and the thing will have you like a fish on a hook. You’ll do anything for another opportunity to touch it. The Order has agents everywhere with the stuff. The moment they get wind of one of them not doing what they want, they cut off the flow of magic to the stone.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Thaniel asked.

“It would be, if you could survive without it.” 

Thaniel nearly missed a step. Lars Telazno was pretty fond of that bag of meldstone. He hadn’t wasted any time
in getting him to touch it either. The old man was just as persistent about Thaniel going to Di’Ghon. He had all but insisted. Come to think of it, Telazno intended to give Thaniel little choice in the matter. It was like he just expected Thaniel to do what he said.

“I can deflect the Order’s magic, but that Circle is a different problem altogether. I can’t handle both at the same time. Once they’re in town I’ve got a good chance
of separating them. Once they’re taken care of, we’re home free.”

“What about…?” Thaniel was about to ask
after Jorel, Elycia, and Harkanin.

“Don’t worry. The Order wants you. They’ll be fine. They still need your friends alive until the stone’s magic takes over.”

“You really think they’ll kill them once the magic… you know.”

“It’s what I would do.” He stopped and turned around, forcing Thaniel to halt lest he run right into the man. He looked Thaniel in the eyes, “If I were a member of the Order.”

“Of course.” Thaniel said as a little shiver worked its way down his spine. “Lucky the Guild found the place before they did.”

“Yes, and by the way, I could never thank you for helping me all that time.” The man smiled.

Ghile, as a twisted half wit, was the object of many a cruel prank or even beating. The first time he saw it happening Thaniel had done what anyone would do. He stopped it. He never really considered that Ghile would remember that he had fended off kids that used to torment him. The old Ghile rarely thought past his next meal. Sometime’s he’d even forget that. It turned out the man knew all along.

“No problem.” Thaniel answered
, feeling a little embarrassed.

“No one treated me better than you, ever.”

Thaniel smiled at that, but as Ghile turned to go he noticed that the man’s own perfect smile never reached his eyes. That chill shivered up his spine again.

He shook it off and took after him. All this talk of evil magic had him spooked.
After all, this was Ghile.

Embarrassed

Elycia woke feeling much better than the past two days. Sometime in the middle of the night she’d stopped retching over the back of the wagon. Either the motion had stopped bothering her, or she’d learned to tolerate it better. Frankly she didn’t care which. She was just glad it was over. She gnawed hungrily on a piece of hard bread. It was the first thing she’d eaten and kept down since they started their mad dash down the pass.

Like every other day for the past couple weeks the sky was cloudless and blue. A warm gentle breeze stirred the tops of the trees as the brightly painted wagon lurched and rocked down the pass trail. The smell of pine permeated everything. The crisp scent made it almost seem like the world around them was cleaner because of it.

Lars Telazno held the meldstone in his palm, waiting for her to try again. At his touch the little stone glowed ever so gently.

“Not again. You people really are nuts.”
Jorel threw his hands up.

Elycia breathed, relaxing as Lars taught her. She stretched out h
er hand and touched the stone.

“You know I’m sitting right here don’t you?” Jorel asked.

The world snapped into blinding strands of azure as the stone brightened with the intensity of a hundred torches. The strands of the Jen’Ghon were everywhere, each and every one of them calling for her attention. It was like being tickled by a thousand breathy fingers. It was more beautiful than anything else she’d ever seen.

Breathe.

“Good. Don’t let it overwhelm you.” Lars soothed, “Start with the sky,” he began for the hundredth time…

“No, please…” Jorel broke in, “Let it overwhelm you. I hope it throws you out the back of the wagon.”

As instructed, she stretched out with her mind, feeling the blue skies over head. High above, she could feel the pressure bearing down on the region driving all other weather away. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, but overlooking how out of place it felt was like ignoring the nose on your face.