Through the open bars of the metal door, they could see a windswept moor and a castle on a hill in the distance. A cool breeze swept in from the desolate countryside bringing the scent of autumn to the sweltering ruins. The familiar smell made Harp long to be in the cool quiet of a real forest and not that hot, fatal jungle. He glanced at Liel’s profile, but her attention was focused on Tresco and his portal back to Tethyr.
“Cardew, you have your instructions,” Tresco said, turning his head slightly and speaking over his shoulder. “Bring me flesh tokens, and I shall embrace you. Ysabel may have given up on you, but I have not.”
Tresco pushed on the door, which made a harsh grating sound as it opened onto the field of gorse and purple heather. Without a glance behind him, the old man stepped through the door, which closed with a metallic clang and dissolved into nothingness. With the ringing sound still reverberating off the walls, everyone looked at Cardew. Cardew looked vaguely surprised at the sudden attention, and then his shoulders slumped.
“Liel,” he said, walking in front of where she kneeled on the ground. He stood in front of her and leaned down so he could look down at her face. “I’m very sorry to have to do it.”
Liel looked up at him. When Cardew’s eyes locked with hers, he took an involuntary step back, the fear evident on his handsome features. Liel’s palms were open to the sky, her head tipped back to the sunlight, and from her lips tumbled the words borne of all the power the jungle had to offer.
“Idiot,” she snarled at him. “You forgot that when the Torque left, my magic came back.”
As Liel rose to her feet, her body quivered with ferocious energy and her presende dominated the hall. Cardew and the husk-soldiers shrank away from her presence, and she swung her head around to look at her friends.
“Get behind me,” she commanded them, and they scurried to obey. Above the hole in the roof, the swatch of blue sky darkened into a vortex of black storm clouds. The soldiers on the edge of the hole lowered their bows and looked up in confusion as a volley of lightning cracked out of the sky. It slammed into one of them, scorching his body into a burned slab of flesh. The impact knocked the other archers off the edge and sent them tumbling down into the hall. When their smoking bodies hit the ground with a sickening thud, the soldiers on the ground turned and ran.
Before they could scramble up the debris pile and out of harm’s way, gusts of air spun down from the sky and formed a wall in front of Liel. She rammed her arm straight out from her shoulder and, at her command, the currents of air swirled across the hall in an unavoidable torrent. Catching men both dead and alive in its wake, it tossed them across the hall as if they were no weightier than fallen leaves. Bodies slammed against columns, their spines breaking on impact. The stained glass cracked inside the window frame. As the wind died down, the loose glass fell from the frames and rained down into the hall in a cascade of red and blue fragments that smashed onto the rubble-strewn floor.
Unmolested by the wind, Harp, Boult, and Kitto gawked at the extent of the destruction wrought by Liel’s spell. The rush of wind stilled, leaving only white currents of air that eddied around the bases of the pillars. Liel pressed her hands together, and the white currents joined together to form the links of an ethereal chain. One end of the chain wound itself around the leg of a body slumped at the base of a column. Liel jerked her arm backward. As if pulled by an invisible hand, the chain dragged the limp body across the expanse of broken glass where it came to rest in front of her.
“You’ve gotten some serious power since I saw you last,” Harp said in awe, staring down at the broken body of Cardew lying at the elf’s feet.
“He’s not dead,” Boult said as Cardew moaned and blinked his eyes.
“Liel,” Cardew whispered, his blood-splattered lips barely moving. “Please help me.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Boult insisted. “After that display of magical prowess, healing the bastard would be anticlimactic.”
“Boult would be most disappointed,” Harp agreed. “It’s all right that Liel killed him and not you, right?”
“Oh yes,” Boult said. “It just feels right, don’t you think?”
“I’m going to give him a chance to save himself,” Liel said quietly.
“What?” Boult sputtered. “You can’t be serious.”
“Tell us what we need to know, and I’ll save you,” Liel promised Cardew.
“Of all the idiotic …” Boult began.
“Just let Liel talk to him,” Harp put a restraining hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “Go look for the elixir, why don’t you?”
“Why don’t you look for the elixir?” Boult said stomping off to the debris pile. “There’s no reason in the infinite heavens to let that dog live.”
“What is Tresco planning?” Liel asked.
“Overthrow Anais and put Ysabel on the throne,” Cardew whispered.
“We know that already!” Boult yelled from across the room.
“Why did he say that Ysabel had forsaken you?” Liel asked.
“Somehow she figured out what we were doing in the jungle. It disgusted her. I disgusted her.”
“You disgust everyone,” Boult yelled again, kicking chunks of the guardian’s flesh around on the floor as he searched for the vial.
“If Tresco finds out how much she knows, he’ll kill her,” Cardew moaned. “You have to protect her. She’s an innocent in all of his plans.”
“Did Tresco mastermind the Children’s Massacre?” Harp demanded.
“I don’t know,” Cardew said. “He must have been involved … But I don’t know.”
“Where is Ysabel?” Liel asked.
“At Kinnard Keep. She’s been in Tresco’s care since the massacre,” Cardew whispered.
“Does Tresco know about the elixir?” Liel asked.
“What elixir?” Cardew rasped. His breathing was labored, and blood seeped out from under his body, staining the dusty floor.
“The elixir I have,” Boult said triumphantly, holding up the slimy, though unbroken, vial of blood. “Safe under Shristisanti.”
“Poor Verran,” Harp said as he watched Boult slipped the elixir into his pack.
“He was one, you know,” Kitto said. “A warlock. I saw the marks on his back when I pulled out the glass. They looked like brands.”
“So he made the pact,” Harp said sadly. “Just like his father.”
“But he wasn’t all bad,” Kitto said. “He just didn’t know what to do.”
“I need to get the elixir back to the dwarves,” Boult said, covering Verran’s body with a cloak. “I need to find out if Majida is all right.”
“And we need to get to Tethyr and help Ysabel,” Harp said.
“Can you reopen a portal?” Harp asked Liel.
“Only with the scroll,” she explained.
“The spell scroll in the colony,” Boult reminded them. “I left it under the floorboards in the hut.”
“I know where you’re talking about,” Liel said. “But we’ll have to get back there fast.”
“Are you sure you want to split up?” Harp asked Boult.
“I have to get the blood back to the Domain,” Boult said urgently. “It’s the only place it’s safe.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Kitto asked Boult.
“We need you,” Harp told Kitto. “We’ll probably have to fight Tresco while he’s wearing the Torque.”
“Which means that Liel won’t be able to use her magic,” Kitto pointed out. “If that happens, I won’t be able to do much.”
“Hit him on the head with a rock and steal the Torque?” Harp said after a moment.
“It’s so stupid that it’s brilliant,” Kitto grinned faintly. “You’ve really outdone yourself, Harp.”
“That’s Captain Harp to you, sailor,” Harp grinned back at him.
“What are you going to do about Cardew?” Boult asked Liel.
“I don’t know,” Liel said helplessly. “I guess I’ll heal him and take him back to Queen Anais. Let her decide what to do with him.”
“He can tell her what Tresco has been doing in Chult,” Harp pointed out. “What do you think, Boult?”