Flight into Darkness Read online

  “Meet me here when the market closes,” Chinua said, turning to serve an elderly lady, who was impatiently tapping her coin on the counter.

  When they returned, Chinua led them into the back room of the little shop; it was dark and the air was fragrant with tea dust. They sat around a low table on rugs while Chinua poured them bowls of green tea. Nodding from time to time, he sipped his tea as Rieuk told him the bones of his story. When Rieuk had finished, Chinua was silent for a while, his broad face expressionless so that Rieuk could not tell what he was thinking.

  “Are you prepared to travel to the roof of the world?” Chinua asked at last. “This matter is far beyond my skills. But there's a place on the northern shores of Lake Taigal, in the mountains, where you may find the answers you're seeking. Have you ever heard of the Jade Springs?”

  “The Jade Springs of Eternal Life? I thought they were just a legend.”

  A slow smile spread across the shaman's face. “Ah. But haven't you found yourselves that there is a grain of truth embedded in all the ancient legends? If you can discover the hidden path to the Jade Springs, the Guardian will surely enlighten you. But it's not a journey to be undertaken lightly. However”—and he leaned forward to refill their bowls— “I'll be returning to Khitari to replenish our stocks in a couple of weeks. If you don't mind traveling on a cart, I'll be happy to take you as far as the steppes.”

  Rieuk consulted Oranir with a look; Oranir glared stubbornly back at him.

  “I've come this far with you; I'm not going to abandon you now.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “The roof of the world, Chinua called it.” Oranir shivered as they stopped on the mountain path to gaze down at the blue-green waters of Lake Taigal far below.

  “How can you still feel the cold after climbing all this way?” Rieuk was hot, and he leaned against a crooked larch trunk to catch his breath. “Is it me, or is the air growing thinner?”

  “Maybe it's too hard a journey for an old man like you.” Oranir let the little taunt slip with a straight face. “Perhaps you should ask the Guardian to make you young again?”

  “Show some respect for your elders!” Rieuk said, laughing. And Oranir turned to him with a smile. There was some quality to the clean, clear mountain air that lifted their spirits. In the many months since they left Enhirre, Oranir had slowly begun to open up. No longer the wary, unsmiling, intense young man Rieuk remembered from Ondhessar, he had even begun to reveal a dry, playful sense of humor.

  Yet as they set out once more up the rocky path, Rieuk was aware that the encounter to come with the Guardian of the Jade Springs might change their relationship forever. He glanced at Oranir's straight back going steadily on ahead of him and realized that he didn't want that to happen. Would it be better to turn back and leave his questions unanswered?

  From time to time they stopped, listening in vain for the sound of fast-flowing water. As the sun began to dip toward the west, Rieuk called on Ormas and sent the hawk to search while he and Oranir shared some of the dried fruit they had bought in the village far below.

  “It has to be the right way,” Rieuk said, slowly chewing on a dried apricot, savoring the honeyed taste. “Chinua said the path wound up toward the two horned peaks, opposite the island.”

  ” I've found it, Master.”

  Looking through Ormas's keen sight, Rieuk saw that the hawk had spotted a waterfall whose fast-spilling waters churned up a froth of white foam. Beyond the falls a natural archway had been hewn in the mountain, and as Ormas soared up over the rocks, a hidden pool was revealed. Its luminous waters were colored the delicate green of river jade and half-obscured by clouds of rising steam.

  “The Jade Springs.” Rieuk stood up, infused with new energy at the sight of his goal. “Ormas has found them.”

  “It's getting dark,” protested Oranir as Rieuk started off again. “If you miss your footing this high up, you'll—”

  “Wait for me here, then,” Rieuk called back down the track. His first glimpse of the springs only made him eager to consult the Guardian as soon as possible. He heard Oranir curse viciously in Djihari and set out after him.

  It was almost night by the time Rieuk and Oranir passed beneath the rocky archway. The roar of the waterfall dwindled as they approached the springs and the steamy mist, tinged green by the glow emanating from the bubbling waters, enveloped them. Rieuk knelt and dipped in his hand. The springwater was hot, though not too hot to bear, and felt slightly effervescent against his skin.

  “Rieuk!” Oranir was pointing into the heart of the steam where the waters issued from a gaping fissure in the mountain rock. Far out in the pool, Rieuk thought that he caught a glimmer of phosphorescence, livid as poison. A dark form could be seen moving toward them through the water. “What is that?”

  Rieuk swiftly withdrew his hand. He sensed a powerful presence. “The Guardian?”

  Breaking through the floating mist came a water serpent, its scales glittering jade and black, its head held high. Its emerald eyes fixed on them, it moved through the waters at astonishing speed. As it drew nearer, they saw that a third eye had opened in its scaly forehead.

  Rieuk stayed kneeling, mesmerized, but Oranir launched himself forward, placing himself between Rieuk and the serpent.

  “Two magi?” The serpent spoke and its voice was that of a woman, soft and sensuous. “I will only speak with one of you. Which shall it be?”

  “Me.” Rieuk rose.

  “No!” cried Oranir, holding him back. “It could be a trap.”

  The serpent turned its glittering eyes on Oranir. “You must leave us alone,” she said, adding slyly, “Don't worry. I don't intend to devour your master.”

  “I'll be all right, Oranir.” Rieuk pressed his shoulder, speaking with a confidence that he did not feel. “Wait for me beyond the waterfall.”

  Oranir stood a moment, his eyes sullen, rebellious. Then he shook off Rieuk's hand and walked back toward the way they had come without a backward glance.

  Rieuk turned to the Guardian. Where the jade-scaled serpent had been, he saw a slender woman, clothed only in her long green hair, which trailed over her naked body like strands of waterweed.

  “Are—are you the Guardian of the Springs?” he stammered.

  She rose out of the springs, the water dripping off her like a liquid veil. “My name is Anagini,” she said. “What is yours?”

  “Rieuk. Rieuk Mordiern.” Mesmerized by her beauty, he stood staring as she glided toward him.

  “Your eye.” She touched his face and he felt his skin tingle. “Have you come to ask me to restore your eye?”

  Rieuk had never imagined that such a thing was possible, believing himself to be disfigured for life. “Could you do it?” Distracted, he began to imagine how wonderful it would be to be whole again, to present an unscarred face to the world, and, best gift of all, to see clearly once more.

  “These are no ordinary healing springs. But the price for granting such a wish would cost you dear. There is always a price, Rieuk Mordiern.”

  “And what is that price?” He had begun to hope again in spite of himself.

  “Your shadow hawk.”

  The dream died. He could never give up Ormas. He should have known it was pointless to wish to be restored; he would go scarred and half-blind to his grave.

  “Your price is too high,” he said sadly, resignedly. “I came here to ask you what has become of the soul of my dead master.”

  “Your master who was a magus?” Her soft voice could only just be heard above the hissing of the steam. “So you know nothing of the true nature of the shadow hawks of the emerald moon?”

  “My master, not my Emissary.” Rieuk thought that she had misheard him.

  “Have you never asked Ormas who he is? Or…” Anagini's voice grew softer still, “or who he once was, before you claimed him?”

  “I never thought to …” Rieuk suddenly began to understand what the Guardian was implying.

  “I will giv
e you an answer to your question,” said Anagini and her eyes darkened until he felt as if he were gazing into fathomless waters, “but you must be prepared to live with the consequences. It may not be the answer you wish to hear. You may even come to wish you had never made this journey.”

  Was she testing him? “I am prepared,” he said.

  “Then summon Ormas and ask him yourself. But be careful; there is always a risk that you may lose him.”

  Oranir leaned back against the rocks beyond the waterfall, arms folded. From time to time he turned to glance uneasily toward the mist-wreathed springs. He didn't trust the serpent woman. And the longer Rieuk was gone, the more suspicious he became as to what her true motives might be. The light began to fade, and the luminous glow emanating from the effervescent waters grew more intense.

  Suddenly a cry rang out, chilling and inhuman, echoing around the barren mountainside. The cry of a shadow hawk. Oranir turned and ran back beneath the arch.

  Ormas fluttered down to alight on Rieuk's outstretched forearm so that Rieuk could gaze searchingly into his Emissary's smoky eyes of topaz flame.

  “Ormas, who are you?”

  “I am Ormas, your Emissary.”

  “But before we were bonded together?” Rieuk had to know, even if the knowledge was going to shatter his most cherished beliefs.

  “I was a shadow hawk. I hunted with my kin in the place you call the Rift. I flew from haoma tree to tree, drinking the nectar from its flowers.”

  “And before that?”

  Ormas blinked.

  “Ormas, forgive me for what I'm about to do.”

  “Master?” Ormas stared at him trustingly.

  “Lady Anagini?”

  The Guardian suddenly raised her hands and flung a skein of phosphorescent mist from the jade waters over the hawk.

  Ormas let out a cry, and in a dark shudder of wings, took to the air. Trapped in the net of mist, he fell back to the ground. Glimmering particles drifted down, forming a gauzy curtain, behind which Rieuk saw a shadowy form beginning to take shape, writhing and twisting as though in silent agony.

  What have I done to him? A terrible cramping pain gripped his heart. It felt as if Ormas were trying to claw his way out of his body, out from under his skin. Rieuk slipped to his knees, clutching his arms across his breast to try to hold in the agony.

  “Rieuk!” He heard Oranir's alarmed cry, and felt his hands close around his shoulders, supporting him.

  “No, stay back.” Rieuk managed to grit out the warning between clenched teeth. But Oranir stayed there, bracing him against his body as the flickering shadow shape that had been Ormas grew taller, looming over them both as they crouched on the ground.

  “Who are you?” Rieuk whispered. Rising out of the darkness was a smoke-winged figure, as tall as he, gazing at him through wild eyes of topaz and jet, just as he had seen the night of his initiation.

  “I no longer remember my mortal name.” The voice was still Ormas's but deeper, riven with anguish.

  “Show me your mortal form, Ormas,” commanded Anagini. In the swirling mists, her eyes gleamed, three emerald stars. That green, unearthly shimmer. It was like the light cast by the emerald moon over the Rift…

  The mists melted away and Rieuk saw a man staring at him, a man clothed in the ceremonial robes of a magus of Ondhessar, with long, dark brown hair and beard touched with threads of silver.

  “Ormas?” Rieuk said uncertainly. The magus gazed back at him, frowning, as if he were a stranger.

  “Who are you?” he said in bewildered tones. “What am I doing here?” He turned to Anagini. “Why have you summoned me, lady?”

  “Ormas, don't you know me?” Rieuk demanded. The topaz eyes still stared at him and he saw the faintest flicker of madness at their heart.

  “I have no idea who you are. How come you know my name?”

  Rieuk could feel every etched mark of the hawk tattoo throbbing as though the blood-ink that linked him to his familiar was being slowly drawn out through his skin. He doubled up as the pain took hold.

  “Enough!” Oranir shouted to Anagini as Rieuk sagged against him. “Stop this now. He can't take any more.”

  “Have I answered your question, Rieuk?” Anagini asked.

  Rieuk nodded, unable to speak. He could feel Ormas's image begin to bleed out of him, as the tiny puncture wounds sealed so long ago opened, one by one.

  Anagini drew a veil of mist around them and, at its darkest core, he saw Ormas's mortal form dwindle. And as it faded, the excruciating pain in his chest faded too. The hawk came winging toward him and, as Rieuk reached out to him, he melted back into his body.

  “This is what becomes of a magus's soul.” The Guardian's voice was harsh, each word like a hammerblow, piercing Rieuk's consciousness. “This is what you will become when you die.”

  “A shadow hawk?” Rieuk laid a hand over his breast, instinctively checking for Ormas's heartbeat close to his own.

  “You are born with angel blood in your veins. So when your body dies, your soul cannot follow the path taken by other mortals. Neither can it ascend to be one with the Heavenly Guardians. So it is transmuted, changed in the Rift, to a winged spirit. But during that transmutation, all mortal memories are washed away. The soul is reborn as a winged spirit, a hawk of the shadows.”

  “So when Imri died, his soul…” Rieuk could still not fully grasp what Anagini had told them.

  “Imri has been reborn as a shadow hawk.”

  Rieuk fell silent. At last he had learned the truth. He felt empty… yet he also felt a certain sense of release.

  “Even if you were to find him in the Rift, he would remember nothing of you or his mortal life.”

  Anagini's words were frank to the point of cruelty.

  “Nothing?” Rieuk repeated, hearing his own voice as if from far away.

  “I have answered your question, Rieuk,” she said softly. “And now you must fulfill your part of our pact.”

  Pact? Rieuk was fully awake again. “But we never agreed—”

  She pressed her fingertips to his forehead, and her touch made him shiver. “Your powers are already weakening. Can't you feel it? And as the Rift grows more unstable, so your powers will slowly leak away… as will mine too. Go after her, and bring her back to the Rift.”

  “Azilis.” This was not what Rieuk wanted to hear. “Why must it always come back to Azilis?”

  “Azilis is an aethyrial spirit. She draws her strength from the Rift. But she has been away so long that she too is growing weak. To survive, she has begun to draw on the life essence of the very child she was bound to protect.”

  “She's been living off Celestine's life force?” What happened to a mortal body when its essence was slowly drained away? Would Celestine begin to age too swiftly? She had been such a beautiful young woman when last he saw her; would he find her withered and feeble?

  “When mortals bond with aethyrial spirits, there is always a price to pay. This is something the Dragon Lords of Azhkendir know to their cost.”

  “So… unless I bring Azilis back to the Rift, our Emissaries will die and we will lose our powers?”

  “You are the last surviving crystal magus, Rieuk.” She leaned toward him so close that he felt as if he were drowning in the liquid depths of her emerald eyes. “There is no one else with the skill to make a new Lodestar. Are you brave enough to do this? Even though it means returning to risk the dangers of the Rift?”

  Rieuk swallowed. The mere thought of venturing back into that chaotic darkness disturbed him. But for the sake of Ormas and Imri's reborn soul, he knew there was no alternative. “If I must, then I must.”

  Anagini took his face in her hands and kissed his forehead. As she did so, he heard her voice whispering softly in his mind.

  ” I've seen that you care for that beautiful mage boy, but how far can you trust him? Take care.”

  The stars burned bright over the mountainside. While Oranir gathered brushwood and lit a small fire, Rie
uk drank some water and, wrapping himself in his cloak, lay down close to the warmth, turning on his side away from Oranir. He was too depressed to talk or eat.

  Yet he could not sleep. The same morbid thoughts kept churning around his mind, keeping him awake. Somewhere in the chaotic darkness of the Rift was Imri, reborn as a shadow hawk. Unless he brought Azilis back to stem the chaos, Imri would be lost a second time. And then there had been Anagini's warning. What did she know about Oranir? Why had she warned Rieuk not to trust him?

  “I know you're not asleep,” Oranir whispered, his lips brushing Rieuk's ear. Rieuk kept his eyes shut, pretending that he hadn't heard. But Oranir could be very persistent when he wanted to. “I'm here, Rieuk. I'm alive. How long can you go on loving a ghost?” Still Rieuk lay unmoving, wondering how long he could continue to resist. “He's never coming back to you.”

  Rieuk had begun to shiver, whether because of the cold of the mountain night or the chill that had pervaded his soul since Anagini had revealed the truth to him.

  Oranir peeled back one side of the cloak, snuggling down beneath it, his body pressed close to Rieuk's. And this time, Rieuk did not push him away.

  But later, much later, as the stars began to fade and Oranir lay, sound asleep, beside him, Rieuk sat up, staring into the embers of the dying fire.

  I don't want to go back into the Rift. Rieuk knew that the turbulence, the darkness leaking from the Realm of Shadows, would drive him mad.

  CHAPTER 5

  The main border post between Djihan-Djihar and Enhirre was manned by the Rosecoeur Guerriers. All the other entry points were patrolled by the Arkhan's guards. But the magi had long ago devised their own secret routes through the dusty foothills that avoided the necessity of passports or papers. Yet as they drew near to the Enhirran border, Oranir seemed to withdraw into himself, saying less and less. Rieuk glanced at him frequently, troubled by his silence. Did the young magus feel as apprehensive as he did about returning? They had both rebelled against the Arkhan, and if they were caught, Sardion would not treat them kindly for their disobedience.