A Step into Darkscape (The Legacy Novels Book 2) Page 13

  Ami’s heart leapt as she remembered her own three mirrors, the three versions of herself she’d chosen from, finally choosing Dangerous.

  “I moved closer to look deeper, to enter the light and travel back to Celestial—but something was not right, was in fact terribly wrong. Each mirror of myself was as lost as I was, as changed as I was. I saw no Celestial; and then I understood the terrible truth, the knowledge passing through the power in disjointed fragments. I looked toward the land that would later become this very town. I looked all around me, into the night and to the sunrise that had quickly risen beyond the ocean, that had broken and lay a fiery line across the furthest horizon. I looked back into the well, my hand submerged, and finally realised: It wasn’t just like Celestial, the stars, the trees, the animals, old and new, it was Celestial. Every part of it. The split within the fabric of reality that had started at the meadow had been the fragmentation of our world, a fragmentation that had reformed into this. It was all Celestial. It was none of it Celestial.

  “The well of power was a portal, but not for passage. It was a link, a string holding fragments together. I also knew now why I was changed, for the power had given this knowledge to me, too.” She stood up and looked at Ami. “You said that the Sentries of the Mortrus Lands joined with the land, with the forest, in a bid to continue to survive, to be…more whole.”

  Ami nodded. “Yes.”

  “Somehow, I had joined with a human. It was the only thing that made sense, I suppose. It was why I survived. We were immortal, as I still am. We could not die, but we could not live. We were thrown from ourselves, and as Sentries merged with your Mortrus Lands, I merged with a different living thing. A human. As I look down at myself now, I see what I hadn’t seen in all of my lonely years. I look human.” She strode to the window and back to the door, returning again in agitation. Golden sunlight reflected in bright sparkles against her armlet, and Ami mused over its serpent form. “What you see of me now is not how a Sentry once looked, though what my appearance was then has faded from memory.” Her eyes wandered to the sword. “I stood from that place and walked back to the edge of the cliff, taking all the wind had to give. I watched the sun rise fully, the yellow orb still a stranger to me, yet the most perfect sight. Its colours scattered on waves, bled over ripples. I thought to the tribe of men behind me, and decided on how I might live. It was time to leave Celestial behind and start again, new and powerful like the sun. That put an end to my lonely existence, and from that moment I was to learn who I truly was. I took control of the tribe and the land, and built upon the site of their sacred well, protecting my heritage. Now the hill holds a town, this very palace on the site of their wooden and mud huts. I found a life, a purpose, and as their goddess I am all powerful. Reborn, I’ve ruled this place for thousands of years.

  “I returned, however, to the well of power again and again through the centuries, and the portal still remains. There is much to say on what the portal connects to, where the strings split and tie—but there’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know.” She stood finally by the fire and extinguished the last of the dying flames, cooling the logs with her breath, the once glowing red wood now iced and frozen. “Portals have been opened, left open, closed, used, misused, through all of the layers,” she said, still eying the sword, “each ground lightning an example, and your Mortrus Lands, too, where Sentries once tried to reform Celestial. I, myself, have attempted…is that how you came to be here?” Ami remained quiet, watching the woman flirt with the sword, the powerful metal she couldn’t master. “It doesn’t matter.” She sighed, her fingers once more tracing the symbol. “You are here, and now you know how all came to be as it is.”

  “That doesn’t explain the tremors, the quakes,” Ami whispered. “You’ve only recalled the past. Why does the earth tremor?”

  Romany flicked the blade into the air with the tip of her finger and caught the hilt, slicing the sharp, curved steel of the katana at Ami’s chest. Ami remained poised, though the power within her boiled and writhed, Dangerous roiling for a fight. The tip found and grazed her skin. A flourish of power followed, purple and green flames running the edge. Romany gasped with delight, her eyes taunting Ami’s restraint. She spun the blade and angled it back to her heart.

  “Of course, much more has happened since that time, you’re right,” she said, watching the coloured magic join with Ami and slip beneath her skin. Her hair sparked and fizzled, purple stars falling. “Yes, you’re the key to this secret power. It answers to you, and you alone.”

  “What you’re doing is hurting people,” Ami said. “It’s ripping layers apart—”

  “You think I don’t know what I do? Ah, but you don’t know what I do, what I discovered, what I—”

  She stopped and pulled back the sword, her face dropping, her expression vacant.

  This is your chance. Taking great care, Ami stood from the seat and stepped backward. The blade had dropped to the woman’s side, its tip touching the rug. Could she pluck it from her while she was in stasis? It was now or never.

  Dropping to her knees, Ami snatched the blade from her, throwing herself clear as a slack arm rose to stop her, fingers snapping and clamping on nothing. She was almost at the window, only a jump away from smashing through the glass, a free fall to the ground below—then something struck her and sent her sprawling. She hit the floor, rising only to meet a wall of burning red brick. It surrounded them both, enclosing them, the library gone, the sunshine and blue sky of escape cut off.

  Romany’s fists crawled with black fire.

  Ami raised her sword, but with a simple flick, the woman sent the deathly black flame out like a whip. It caught her wrist and snapped it with an audible clack, and the sword dropped to the ground. Ami screamed an echo around the burning chamber.

  “That was very rude.” Romany seethed red anger, her hands turning to talons, snatching and scratching the air in front of her. She opened her mouth to a yawn of black light that released a long forked tongue, licking and lashing. Ami dodged its thrust forward, her shoulders burning as she fell back against the wall. Cradling her hand, she made a grab for her fallen sword that now lay in the space between them, but the black fire whipped her again, snapping her other wrist as the first. The pain was unbearable, and she hated hearing her own screams echoed back.

  The thing that had been a woman laughed. She was no longer beautiful, but a she-devil, flame and fury, her hair a fan around her head, the ends prickling with red sparks; her eyes were the colour of molten iron, and her grin was straight from hell. She breathed death and rot, the air becoming steel grey and silver with it. Ami couldn’t breathe, and the fire wall contracted around them.

  Dangerous.

  There was nothing she could do.

  “Show me its power,” Romany cried, the poisonous air gathering, coiling in the shape of a snake, its eyes a blaze of red. “Release the sword to me, and you will live.”

  Dangerous.

  Ami closed her eyes, letting the power within flow down her arms, mending her broken wrists. She felt the snake slither, its black body careening around her ankles, round her legs—but in her mind she was there, the white steps before her. She jumped them two at a time, swiftly crossing the white stone. There were the arches, broken and incomplete, and knelt at their base, the girl she needed. Ami threw herself down upon her, merging with her, power filling her entire body. Adam’s twisted green fire bled from her skin, consuming the snake and turning it to smoke. It fell from her and dispersed as Ami turned to face Romany, her eyes wide and shot with green fire that lashed out at her adversary, sending her sprawling through the burning wall.

  The apparition shattered, leaving only the library—all smoke and magic—and Romany on her back, with Ami standing over her.

  She glared, her eyes wide and hateful as she got to her feet.

  “Oh—I was wrong all along, wasn’t I? You are not the key.” She pulled at her dress, flicking her hair, her returned beauty a m
ask that Ami saw through. She circled, Ami backing up to the window, the sword still between them, burning with the light of day. “You aren’t the key. You are the source. Oh, I—I need to keep you.”

  She turned then and fled the room, the twin doors a quick flutter, slamming shut behind her.

  Ami was left alone, confused and reeling. She picked the sword up and turned to the window, swinging it at the glass.

  *

  The sleep he’d gotten had been short, and as he’d feared, his thoughts and dreams were filled with the girl: the moment the lunar had hung above her, the moment he saw her face fully, he was haunted.

  Mattus had woken in a full-bodied sweat, panting, the pungent aroma of an old man’s weak bladder stained into sheets that were wrapped tight and cold around him. Feeling heavy he stumbled to his water closet to finish up, his head bowed against the stone. Wetting his hands in the water jug, he spread them across his face, wrinkles flattening beneath his fingers, his beard catching between them. Ah, it had been so long since he’d felt his skin taut and smooth, so long within the service of Madam Romany that he could think of nothing before her. Too many lifetimes he’d existed past his limit, as had each member of The Order, and there were days he truly felt it, days where the power refused to regenerate his old muscles.

  The old man’s head throbbed. He stepped to the window and threw the latch, letting in the brisk morning air. He knew what he had to do, and his eyes betrayed his plans as they searched beneath the waning moon, beyond the steep climb and toward the temple. The girl had come from there, had come through there. In his mind he saw a blue light between black trees—

  Gathering himself and wrapping up warm, Mattus slipped out of the palace before the sun could rise, leaving by a side door and hurrying to the bridge. There was no one to see him, and it was just as well, for he was breaking the curfew Madam Romany had set upon the town; but the feeling within him, the sense of knowing the girl, was too overwhelming. It was all he could think about. Perhaps he’d gain nothing by visiting the temple, but he had to try.

  The bridge was slippery from the earlier rainfall, and looking to his right he saw where the struggle had been, where the man had escaped Jonus’s ruse. They all knew about it, had spoken of Jonus more and more frequently. The bank was broken in the dark, the black sludge still slipping back into the water. He shuddered. Best not to dwell on the water.

  The climb up the street was done without a single look back, the clipping sounds of his staff against the cobbles too loud in the quiet town, where no one watched, yet eyes were everywhere. And it was so cold!

  He shuffled on.

  Reaching the summit, Mattus came to the town walls. The sky was lighter, the battlements above like black teeth against the grey, empty of any guards or soldiers now; but soon the morning would come. He had to hurry. Closing his eyes Mattus breathed deeply, imagining himself a bird upon a breeze, wings outstretched and light, so light he floated, floated… Eyes open, he watched the ramparts sail beneath him, the woodland on a fast approach. He touched down on a black trail where neither moon nor rising sun ruled. There was a time, way back, when the town had been all forest, deep and dense to the very cliff edge. It was a time long ago, before there were more than twenty men, women and children living off of the river, a time before she’d come. A time before he’d come. A distant, hazy memory, more a thought or a dream once had, and best left alone.

  Continuing on through, he listened to the trees talk, the tall pines clicking softly to one another. The conversation encircled him and he stopped for a moment to listen. Did they judge him? Some of the trees were at least related to those he’d first known—would they recognise him? The past was confused. He walked on, and soon the woods gave way to the grassy hill, mud-torn and hard to traverse, though the lightened sky helped his footing. He reached the top and was greeted with the broken golden rise of the sun across water. It was still a thin strip, shadowed by a night fast departing, though it would soon be full and following him. Make hast!

  A flash, and he saw the girl again, looking up at him with eyes that were so familiar. His own fell upon the temple, and sighing heavy to the sea breeze, Mattus descended, his staff sinking into the ground.

  It took little time, and soon he was at the entrance. The door moved for him as he waved his hand, and he slunk into the cold shadow where rooms broke from the corridor, left and right, and his skin prickled with the immense power. It was all around, seeping from the very walls, charged in the floor, vibrating with every step. He ignored each diversion, focussing only on the staircase that spiralled up to the level above.

  “She came here,” he whispered, “she passed through…but how, and from where?” Leaning his staff against the wall, holding to its shaft, he let himself down to his knees and placed his hands on the first stair. It was hot, burning. “I mean no harm,” he crooned, “just show me, where did she come from? Why does she invade my mind?” His eyes closed and he saw her face once more, backlit in blue—dark trees, green flame.

  The ground began to shake, and his staff fell, clattering to the stone floor. Mattus reached for the walls, then grabbed the steps more firmly, but the tremor did not calm.

  “Dear me,” he cried, feeling for balance, losing his bearings, “what have I done? I didn’t want to—I only wanted to—” Mattus was thrown down with his staff, dust falling and scattering over his body. “Why do I see her?” he cried.

  The quake stopped, leaving a vacuum that echoed silent and loud. Then came the steps from behind him, all too familiar.

  “Why are you here?” she hissed. “How dare you leave the palace at all, let alone come here?”

  “Please, Madam, I’m having visions. I’m consumed with her, I’m—”

  “Talking too much,” Romany said, now standing over him. He saw her face, changed so from the placid and regal goddess. Now her features had skewed with uncontrollable hatred. “You dare to come here.”

  “Please, Madam Romany, I sought only to know, to understand why I’m—”

  “Let me have those thoughts.”

  Mattus was pulled up to face her, her ancient beauty awesome and terrible, her eyes, gleaming red, her lips wide in a grin. His bladder gave in as she ran her hand through the few strands of hair upon his head and gripped his skull. She was inside, claws scratching through his mind, talons of power ploughing his thoughts, every doubt he’d ever had, every memory he’d ever cherished, and of course, thoughts of the girl. Her dark hair, her dark eyes flaring green, her voice—images of people and places he’d never seen, the girl with the sword of power.

  Romany dropped him to the ground and looked away as he moaned, the pain throbbing, bursting from his skull. His nose bled. Nothing made sense, nothing in his life, his very, very long life. Mud lay at the bottom of a goblet, stirred and murky, no wine, no water.

  Madam Romany made to leave, but not before grabbing his foot and pulling him out of the temple, flinging him against one of the rounded stones.

  “Tell me now,” she screamed, her voice a boom against the sound of the sea, “tell me everything, or I swear I shall rip you to shreds to find the truth.”

  “I don’t know anything,” he managed, but even if true, she didn’t care. Madam Romany’s hand swiped down against his face and ripped the flesh from his bone, scoring him. Blood flowed and he spluttered and sunk, his hand flapping at where his cheek had been. “Wah, waa.” He couldn’t speak. He tried again, frantic, the pain; he had to explain. “Way-t-t. Iya olee noo Iya noo err.”

  “You know her?” she said, her teeth clenched as she towered above. “How do you know her? Has she been here before?”

  “Iya doo-t-t noo, Iya sare, Maam Oma-ee.” He spoke the truth, though his words came forth as meaningless babble. It felt as though his face was on fire, the pain too much to even scream through, while his heart pounded, a constant slam in his skull.

  She spat her breath and grabbed his head once more, wracking his body with spasms of pain. Was he drool
ing? He couldn’t see—things were fading. Blinking out. She was inside him again, scratching and clawing. Murmurs and noises rumbled through him and he began to retreat into his mind to a distant place, a memory once held of a castle. The darkness would soon take him. Would the power heal him this time?

  With a jolt, his eyes flashed open on rolling waves, sparkles of sunlight, ripples of magic. She’d found something, and he saw it also. It was a faded memory, hazy, seen through dark, murky glass, off colour and bleak. A pool in the dark, and upon that water the image of a girl, a brush held in one hand, her focus upon a canvas out of sight.

  “There she is,” Romany said, her voice crowing. “You have seen her, but not here, no. She has not been here. You have been there.”

  He was released and the world swam in a million colours. Romany’s hand lay against his face as his skin spun back together like wool. He was alive, though perhaps death would have been a comfort.

  The grey returned, and the black took him.

  Chapter Ten

  The dawn wounded the night’s horizon with her first spoke of unruly red, and within minutes it’d bled across the ocean’s tide, spilling upon the cliff and over the land. There, it filtered between houses, across rooftops and through windows, and permeated the deepest woodland groves, rousing birds to sing in chorus, stirring all from their rest and weary sleeps. And among the creatures of the wild, curled beneath a copse of trees, were three strangers, one of which dreamed heavily of dark things from other realms.

  It was within one of these realms that Hero had first heard the footsteps behind him, and thought them treacherous, for they hid within the echo of his own and followed his progress along the muddy trail he’d trekked before, up toward the castle high upon the mountain peak—not the Castle of Legacy though, no. This castle was scorched and scarred and dead.