The Spellstone of Shaltus Read online

  A lone Sylvan sat at a campfire in the center of the glade. He was a member of the Ayers tribe, but Leah couldn’t remember his name.

  She wondered if she dare step forward and claim traveler’s rights. It was common practice for wayfarers to extend hospitality to one another. That fish looked tempting. Probably the Sylvan had been traveling for some distance and was running low on supplies of delaap nuts, or he wouldn’t eat fish. It was becoming too dark for her to travel farther anyway. The campfire looked very inviting.

  But if this were one of Quinen’s men, he could have been in telepathic contact with the new Sylvan chief and warned to watch for her.

  She decided that she could not risk a meeting. As she began to ease backward, the Sylvan turned in her direction. She froze. He was not looking at her.

  It seemed as if he’d just remembered something he should do. He rose and walked to his saddlebag. He removed a small pouch from one of the side packets.

  When his fingers reached into the bag, his head tilted. The firelight clearly illuminated his features.

  In that moment Leah remembered the man’s name, Vargo. She realized with dreadful certainty that the pouch contained the Shaltus-programmed spellstone that Quinen had sent for. The Sylvan’s fingers touched the wraithstone. It came alive.

  This stone had evidently been structured with more of Shaltus’s personality than the crystal planted at Carlton, for there was no mistaking the origin of the dark well of force that Leah sensed. It was powerful, dangerous, malignant.

  At its touch Leah reacted automatically, without thinking. Her spellstone flared blue-white, and a golden aura of protective force enveloped her.

  Instantly she knew her mistake, but it was too late. The Shaltus-stone had not been aware of her presence until she had used her power. If she had not acted, it might never have sensed her. Now it probed toward her, touched her shield, and somehow recognized her.

  A blast of force slammed into her. As it met her shield flares of intense light bounced off of it. A corona of silver and gold enveloped her. Fire scorched her skin but did not burn it. Thunder blasted her eardrums. The air reeked of ozone and sulfur.

  The attack broke off. She had withstood it easily.

  She saw the Sylvan staring at her with surprise and fear. He glanced at the wraithstone which he still held. He looked ready to toss it away and run.

  Suddenly Vargo’s fingers clenched tightly around the stone. His head jerked back and forth. His features contorted. His legs and arms twitched frantically.

  Then it was as if something snapped into place. His face and body became calm. But they were no longer Vargo’s.

  The features had subtly altered—the jawline was harder, the lips firmer, the skin tighter. The face was somehow handsomer, older, crueler.

  The Shaltuswraith possessed Vargo. Or rather the echo of the wraith did, for the personality impressed on the programmed stone was only a carbon copy of the wraith, as the wraith was only a shadow of the man, Shaltus. It was a wraith of a wraith.

  The man who had been Vargo laughed. The roar was deep, sensuous, exultant, menacing—and totally unlike Vargo’s laugh.

  As he laughed, Leah counterattacked. The wraithstone threw up a shimmering protective shield around the Sylvan. Streamers of crimson flame surrounded him as her spell hit, but she could not penetrate the barrier.

  Suddenly the branches of the trees on each side of Leah stirred and flowed unnaturally. The wraith was using Vargo’s Sylvan powers.

  Bark-stiff arms grabbed her. Twigs became fingers that held her in an unbreakable vise. The wood had become as strong as steel.

  Leah knew better than to use her human magic against the Sylvan power directly, for it would have had no effect, so she continued to blast Vargo with spells.

  The tree whipped her through the air. The branches flung her toward the sky, smashed her against the ground, and tossed her upward again.

  Her defensive shield absorbed most of the force of the blow, saving her from almost certain death at the impact. But the drubbing bruised her, made her nose bleed, and left her head ringing.

  Then the limbs whirled her around and hurtled her toward the ground again. She screamed. At the last moment the branches twisted. Instead of hitting the ground she snapped up and down in the air. Finally the tree stilled.

  She found herself hanging upside down closer to the edge of the clearing, only a couple of meters from Vargo.

  Her sorcery had not touched him.

  “No. That’s too quick a death,” he said. The voice was deeper than Vargo’s had been and held no trace of the lilting Sylvan accent.

  “Too easy a death for one of S’Carlton blood.”

  Leah felt the branches tighten around her wrists and ankles. She struggled to free herself, but the boughs were as unyielding as bands of iron. They lifted her into a horizontal position and began to pull her in opposite directions.

  “Your father put me on a rack …” Vargo chuckled. The sound of it was like fingernails grating against sandpaper.

  Leah closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pain as the tree stretched her body as taut as a bowstring.

  She murmured a spell. The branches of the tree began to flame.

  The wraithstone reacted swiftly with a wind that extinguished the fire.

  Leah changed the wind into a hurricane that tore violently at tree and Sylvan.

  The hurricane became a tornado. It whirled into the sky and disappeared.

  Leah felt as if her arms were being pulled from their sockets. She battered the wraith-protected Sylvan with several strong spells, but the stone countered each one.

  The fear that had been with her since she had identified Vargo intensified and threatened to overwhelm her. Her powers and those of the wraith-controlled stone seemed equally matched, but the wraith would have the advantage as long as he used Vargo’s Sylvan powers against her.

  She doubted that Vargo was a very skilled shaper, for she’d never seen him wear the face paint that denoted high mastery of the craft. However, she knew that his Sylvan powers were still far superior to hers. Would it do any good to attack on that level?

  Razor-edged pain cut across her thoughts as the tree pulled a bit harder. The intervals between its movements were becoming longer. The shadow-wraith was savoring the torture.

  She decided to try her Sylvan powers—another pull and she’d be screaming, the next and she wouldn’t be able to concentrate enough for magic, after that she’d be unconscious or worse.

  Focusing on her spellstone, she forced her mind into a calm, clear state. Then she melded with the tree.

  She could sense the spirit of the wraith around her like a malignancy within the fiber of the wood. If it could sense her, it gave no sign.

  She probed into the heart of the tree and felt its untouched core of strength. She sucked eagerly at the energy. It was invigorating.

  Then she moved into the branches that held her body. She tried to shape the wood. Vargo’s Sylvan powers were far stronger than hers, however. She could not move the boughs.

  So she tried tapping the tree’s strength within the branches.

  Instantly there was a change.

  The Shaltuswraith was pouring energy into the tree to shape it, and Leah found herself absorbing that energy. The faster she took the power, the faster the wraith had to channel it in to maintain its control of the tree.

  The flux of energy flowed around and through her in an exhilarating tide. It happened far too quickly for the wraith to sort through Vargo’s mind for a means to stop it.

  Leah was getting stronger; Vargo was weakening. Suddenly a spasm shook the tree as the Sylvan lost control. The branches relaxed into normalcy.

  Leah fell, rolled, and pulled herself erect. Severing her contact with the tree, she focused all her energy into her shield.

  As she turned toward Vargo and saw the Sylvan collapse, the wraithstone struck at her. The air around her flared with white-hot flame.

  She countere
d it easily and blasted the Shaltus-programmed stone. She could sense that there was no longer any danger from the Sylvan. The wraithstone had drained him of strength in its attempt to continue the torture. Vargo was dead.

  The wraithstone glowed yellow, -then orange, then red, as she continued her assault. Its energy stores were greatly depleted. It could no longer attack her.

  The stone turned blue and purple-violet as she transformed the energy she’d taken from it into a weapon against it. Its colors deepened into brown and gray-black.

  It exploded. A white fireball flung Leah back against the ground. Its glare blinded her.

  During the battle she’d been able to ignore the pain of the torture. Now it was a sudden throbbing agony that made her cry out.

  She lay there, not wanting to move, almost not wanting to live. But as she blinked her sight came back, and she found herself staring at the dead black lump that had been the wraithstone.

  I’ve got to destroy it completely, she thought.

  The air smelled of ozone, fire, and fish. The latter made her mouth water. She smiled inwardly at the absurdity of feeling hunger while she felt so much pain. Glancing at the fire, she saw a pan of fried trout and a few skytree nuts on the ground, waiting to be eaten. Nearby sat a jug. Tomaad had to be in that jug.

  Her legs and arms didn’t want to move. They felt like rubber that had been pulled too far and could no longer snap back.

  Easing herself up on hands and knees, she pushed herself erect. She lurched forward and staggered past Vargo’s body to the fire. Clumsily picking up the jug, she took several long sips of the tomaad.

  The Sylvan elixir quickly eased her pain and restored her strength. After some minutes she felt well enough to examine the wraithstone.

  Although it was blackened, cracked, and apparently harmless, she approached it cautiously. The aura of her shield glimmered with reflected firelight. She did not sense the Shaltuswraith, and it did not react to her presence.

  Taking a deep breath, she picked up the stone. The sun had now set and the glade was dim, so she had to bring it close to the fire to see it clearly. It was about the size of a small gold coin. One side had a jagged edge. Obviously it was only a broken piece of a larger spellstone.

  She wondered where Shaltus had gotten a supply of powerstones. They were extremely rare. He would not have broken his original stone into pieces even for his revenge, for that would have greatly lessened, if not destroyed, his power.

  As she stared at the crystal, she suddenly knew its origin. Both this stone and the one planted at Carlton had once been part of a larger spellstone—her father’s.

  She and her half-brother had been with her father when he’d tried to destroy the Shaltuswraith. They’d stayed behind, about four kilometers from the Shaltus spellstone, while their father had gone in, believing the stone could be destroyed only at close range. They were to watch and learn from his mistakes, if he failed.

  He’d never come out. And they hadn’t had the power to go far enough into the Shaltus-controlled area to retrieve his body.

  Evidently the wraith had taken her father’s spellstone and had broken it into several pieces. Then he’d programmed the fragments with his own personality and thirst for vengeance. Since the stone had been in the S’Carlton family for generations, it would have been somewhat attuned to those of S’Carlton blood, and thus it would be the perfect tool to use against them.

  The piece of crystal was dead now, but Leah wanted to take no chances. She pressed it against her own stone and blasted it with magic. The wraithstone crumbled into ash that scattered on the wind.

  She sighed with relief. She had won this time, but she had no doubt that the outcome would have been different if she had met the actual Shaltuswraith, which was far more powerful.

  Leah took a deep breath of air. It was moist and cool, and the acrid smells of sorcery were almost gone. The aroma of the cooked trout was strong and inviting.

  Oh, well, she thought, sinking to her knees next to the fire. There’s no use wasting good food. She laughed. Her body shuddered and tingled with the sudden release of tension.

  She picked up the almost cool trout and took a hearty bite.

  Nine

  The next day Leah took the left fork in the trail. It cut almost due east through woods and farmlands and intersected the Bluefield Road a few miles south of Iveysville. The road had been wide enough for large wagons and coaches when it had been the main thoroughfare between the castles of Carlton and Bluefield. But now that Shaltus controlled Bluefield it was rarely used south of Iveysville and was in poor repair. Weeds and brush broke through the gravel surface. Even a few saplings were beginning to take hold. The only clear area was a rough track on the right, just wide enough for a single horseman.

  At this point the road ran alongside a creek, so Leah camped on its bank. She was far enough away from the road to be unobtrusive, but close enough to watch it.

  She waited for two days, growing more anxious with each hour that passed. Finally the whisper of hooves became drumbeats that shattered the forest’s peace.

  Leah slipped from her concealed campsite to the side of the road. She watched approaching patches of color coalesce into the forms of five riders—Rowen, Rusty, Fletcher, and two of S’Carlton’s men.

  She stepped onto the road.

  As they caught sight of her the men halted. All except Rusty seemed startled to see her. The precog’s pale big eyes held no surprise, only worry. “N’Omb’s fires!” exclaimed Fletcher.

  Michael Rowen dismounted. The others followed.

  “We heard you were with the Sylvan,” he said.

  Leah nodded. She felt tense and afraid, not knowing what Rowen thought of her. “I went there to discover whether they had planted the programmed spellstone, at Carlton.”

  Rowen was silent. His keen eyes looked thoughtful, but not hostile.

  Rusty smiled shyly at her, as though he were glad to find her alive. “I thought you might show up before we reached Bluefield, but I wasn’t sure. Sometimes I have flashes of foresight, whether I want them or not. But the future has many alternate paths. Without proper control I see only a jumble and don’t know which is the most probable.” He sighed. “Anyway, what did you find out from the Sylvan?”

  “One of the Sylvan had hidden the spellstone among my things,” Leah explained. “His name is Quinen. He’s part of a sect called the Expansionists that wants to destroy humans and take over their lands. The Expansionists have formed an alliance with the Shaltuswraith. Even now they are moving to ambush you, up the road at Ravenscliffe. With you dead they planned to smuggle another programmed spellstone into the castle to kill my half-brother. Quinen had sent for a new stone, but I chanced upon it on my way here and managed to destroy it.”

  “Then you came here to warn us?” asked Rusty.

  “Yes.” Leah sighed. “I dared not go back to Carlton to tell my brother. I thought perhaps you could warn him, convince him …”

  “How do we know you’re telling us the truth?” interrupted one of the soldiers. He was one of Richard S’Carlton’s lieutenants, a man named Klaus. “This

  Quinen you speak of couldn’t be doing anything without the Sylvan chief’s approval, and that means your grandfather.”

  “Trask is dead,” said Leah. She told them of Quinen’s treachery and of Geraed’s offer to help. Her voice was flat as she recited the events. She felt emotionally drained.

  “Then most of the Sylvan don’t know of the pact with Shaltus?” asked Rowen when she’d finished.

  “No. They wouldn’t approve if they did. Even those who want war with the humans would find the idea of an alliance with a wraith repugnant. And there are many who don’t want war. If Geraed can expose the pact that the Expansionists have made with the wraith, it might destroy the sect’s power.”

  Obviously still skeptical, Lieutenant Klaus shook his head. “Lord S’Carlton said that she’s a traitor. He ordered her execution. I don’t doubt that part o
f her story is true, all right—the part about the alliance between the Sylvan and the wraith. But she’s a Sylvie too, and she’s going to lead us right into a trap… .”

  “I don’t think so.” Rowen’s deep voice cut into Klaus’s words with the edge of command. “But there is one way to make certain.”

  Dropping his horse’s reins, he stepped forward to face Leah. “Give me your spellstone.”

  Leah studied his face. His handsome features were unyielding; his eyes were cold steel.

  Fear stabbed through her like a knife. She did not know this man; yet she had gambled her life in coming to him. Now he wanted her only protection. Once it was more than a hand’s length from her body, she would not be able to control the spellstone. Gripping the stone tightly in her right hand, she hesitated. Then she realized that in coming here she’d already decided to trust him. She pulled the amulet over her head and gave it to Lord Rowen.

  He tucked the chain casually into his belt and pulled his own stone forward. The amethyst crystal glowed with pale white light.

  Leah tensed as he stepped toward her. She half-expected to feel an attack. Instead Rowen placed his crystal against the center of her forehead. It was flesh-warm.

  Glancing back to the others, Rowen announced, “A truthspell shall give us the answer.”

  Leah’s tension drained away. She knew that such spells were possible, but she’d never seen one used. She’d heard they were difficult to master and required intense concentration.

  “A lie will turn the stone red; the truth will keep it white,” said Rowen. He murmured a long incantation. His stone brightened into a steady white flame.

  Then he questioned her about her visit to the skytree forest.

  As she repeated the story of what happened, she left out only her affair with Quinen. It wasn’t pertinent, and it embarrassed her. Rowen’s spellstone remained bathed in silver light, confirming her veracity.

  “All right,” exclaimed Klaus finally. He frowned. Although he didn’t like sorcery, he had lived under the rule of sorcerers all his life, so he accepted its use and reliability. Also, he knew Rowen’s reputation. If such a sorcerer’s powers deemed Leah’s story to be the truth, he had to believe it.