The Violet Keystone Read online

  "The Empress is dead," Tal said harshly. "Besides, I know your true master is Sushin. Where is my Spiritshadow?"

  "A deal, an agreement, your Spiritshadow for my miserable life," Fashnek whimpered. "Oh, your generosity--"

  Tal held his Sunstone high. Red light flared, bathing Fashnek in its glow, making the sweat on his face look like beads of blood.

  "In the shadowbottle over there!"

  Tal looked where Fashnek pointed. There was a bottle of golden metal on one of the worktables. But there were other bottles and containers strewn around the room.

  "You open it," Tal instructed. "And I might let you live."

  "Yes, of course, great lord," Fashnek replied. He slowly levered himself up and hobbled toward the table. Tal kept his distance, the Sunstone ready.

  "You will be Emperor, I am sure," mumbled Fashnek as he struggled with the stopper on the bottle. "I saw the Violet in you. I know these things. And an Emperor always needs a Master of Nightmares, no? I will serve you as I served Her Majesty. Sushin, why, he is nothing, a nobody--"

  "Shut up!" ordered Tal. "If I am ever Emperor, there will be no Hall of Nightmares at all!" "So you say now, Master, so you say… ah!" With a last heave from his good hand, the stopper came free. A shadow erupted forth, a great stream of roaring darkness that rapidly assumed the familiar shape of Adras. A very angry Adras, shadow-lightning flickering not just from his hands but also from his eyes.

  "Jailer, die!"

  With that, Adras grabbed the shadow-half of Fashnek around its insectoid head and began to twist, shadow-lightning flickering all around and thunder rumbling.

  Fashnek screamed. Tal started forward, shouting, "No!"

  But it was too late. Adras bellowed in triumph as the Spiritshadow's head came off. He threw it on the ground and trampled on it, letting Fashnek's body fall to the floor.

  "No one will lock Adras in a tiny bottle ever again!"

  Tal knelt down next to Fashnek. The Master of Nightmares stared up at him, his eyes glassy with shock. The shadow-half that had sustained him was already fading into nothingness. Where it had been, there was no skin and Tal could see bone and internal organs, even though he tried not to look.

  "It was a mistake," whispered Fashnek. "A terrible mistake. I was afraid of dying… yet there are things worse than death… It was Sharrakor who wounded me, in dragon-shape, and Sharrakor who gave me life. I should not have taken it from his hands. But perhaps it has all been only a nightmare, all in my dream machines…"

  "No," said Tal, thinking of Bennem and Crow's parents and Jarnil and all the people who had been tormented by Fashnek and his machines, many of them to their deaths.

  "You were the nightmare."

  But Fashnek didn't hear him. He was already dead.

  CHAPTER SIX

  There were no Spiritshadows left in the cavern, which was good, thought Milla. But there was nothing left of the makeshift fort, either, and her little band of Icecarls was tiring rapidly as they dashed from side to side in their efforts to avoid the Violet wave. It hadn't lessened in size or power at all, though it was becoming more erratic in direction and harder to predict every time it rebounded from a wall.

  "Left!" shouted Saylsen, and they all ran left, until the Shield Mother shouted "Stop!" and then, "Dark take it! Right a bit!"

  The Violet wave missed them by a few stretches, hurtling past toward the far wall. It would be a few minutes before it came sweeping back in at a new angle.

  "Have you tried reversing whatever it was you did?" asked Malen. She didn't look at Milla. Like everyone else she kept her eyes on the wave.

  "No," snapped Milla. Every time she started to focus on the Sunstone the Violet wave would come back. Someone would grab her and drag her out of the way, and her concentration would be gone. Besides, all she could think of was the avalanche. Trying not to think of an avalanche only made the image even stronger in her head. So even if she could concentrate on her Sunstone, it was likely she would just create another Violet wave. Two would kill everyone for certain.

  "We'll have to try one of the doors again," Saylsen said grimly. "We can't run away from this thing forever."

  "Odris! Have a look and see what's behind that one," ordered Milla, pointing to one of the doors. There were only two exits left to try, out of the five. One stone door and part of the corridor behind it had been totally smashed by the wave and was now impassable. Two others were so heavily barricaded and defended that there was no chance of getting through.

  "I'll get my head pulled off if I poke it through," Odris protested. "You have a look if you want!"

  "I can't stick my head through a closed door," said Milla. "You can. Would you prefer to get swept up by the wave?"

  "I'm not tired," said Odris mulishly. "I can keep away from--"

  "Left!" shouted Saylsen. "Left!"

  Odris was the only one who hadn't been watching the wave. As Saylsen shouted, she moved right instead of left.

  "This way!" yelled Milla. "This way!"

  The wave rushed on. Odris, caught in front of it, didn't follow Milla. Instead she ran in front of the wave, before launching herself into the air and hurling herself at the door Milla had indicated. A second after she went through it, the wave hit with a deafening crash. Once again, it rebounded to groans from all the Icecarls.

  "Surely it has to stop soon," puffed Malen. "I did not think Sunstones were so strong."

  "Neither did I," muttered Milla. All the Light Magic she had seen before had only lasted as long as the caster concentrated on it. This thing she had created seemed to have a life of its own.

  Milla anxiously looked at the door Odris had gone through. She could feel the Spiritshadow's absence--a sort of dull ache that was hard to pin down, rather like a toothache. But at least there was no worse feeling. If Odris was being hurt by other Spiritshadows, Milla would feel some of her pain.

  "Head for the door," Milla ordered after a quick look to make sure they would still be able to avoid the wave's return passage. "Odris isn't fighting, so maybe we can get through."

  They were halfway over to it when the door opened. But instead of Odris, there was a Chosen woman, a Sunstone in her hand and an unfamiliar Spiritshadow at her back, a huge bird-thing with eyebrows like horns.

  Milla opened her mouth to order a sudden charge, but snapped it shut as another Chosen emerged behind the woman. This time it was someone she knew. Tal's eccentric great-uncle Ebbitt, now clad in a weird assortment of crystal armor plates in many different, shining colors. To top it all off, he was wearing a golden metal saucepan on his head, cushioned by a scarf of bright indigo.

  Milla couldn't help smiling. From their very first meeting when Tal had taken her to his great-uncle's lair, she had liked Ebbitt. That meeting seemed very long ago. Now Tal was who knew where, she was surrounded… but just the sight of Ebbitt brought sudden hope.

  "Quick! Quick!" Ebbitt called out. "This is an escape in progress!"

  The Icecarls needed no urging. The wave was already rushing down upon them. Despite their weariness, they started to run for the door, which was wide enough for three people to pass through at one time.

  "What is that?!" exclaimed Ebbitt as he saw the wave. The woman with him exclaimed something, too, then both of them raised their Sunstones as one, and twin beams of intense white light shot out to meet the wave.

  As the White Rays hit, the wave faltered and slowed. But it did not stop fully, nor disappear, as the two Chosen seemed to expect.

  "Too strong!" gasped the woman. "I cannot hold it!"

  Her light snapped off, and she fell back to be caught in the gentle claws of her Spiritshadow.

  Ebbitt kept up his White Ray, but the wave began to speed up again. Ebbitt started to back up, passing through the doorway with the last of the Icecarls, the Wilder Jarek, who was still in his post-fury state. He could move and fight quickly enough, but would not speak and his eyes remained strange and distant.

  "Get… ready to… slam door,"
instructed Ebbitt. Sweat was pouring off his face as if he were physically holding back a great weight. His Sunstone was so bright that Milla could not look at it, and the White Ray was equally blinding.

  "Now!" shouted Ebbitt, and the White Ray disappeared.

  Milla and Saylsen hurled the door shut and stepped back, just as the wave hit the other side.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Stone screeched and the door shuddered. For a terrible moment Milla thought it was going to explode inward, but then it stilled. The wave had rebounded again.

  "Quick, quicker, quickest!" said Ebbitt as he dashed down the line of Icecarls. "We must away!"

  He led them down a corridor, past four dead or unconscious Chosen, to a T-junction where Odris was busy prying loose stones out of the end of the corridor and piling them against a door.

  Ebbitt went to the seemingly solid wall opposite the door and pressed carefully in several places. Nothing happened. He looked puzzled for a moment, then pressed in entirely different places. He was answered by a deep rumble under the floor.

  The wall pivoted in place to reveal a narrow entry and a flight of steps leading down.

  "The out-way. Go help Odris!" cried Ebbitt, going over to pry out a stone himself from where Odris had begun to demolish the wall. The stone was bigger than he expected, came out suddenly, and fell on the floor, narrowly missing his feet.

  As the stone rolled to a stop, a spot of blue light suddenly appeared on the door, smoke curling up from it. The light began to fizz and spit wood chips, steadily cutting through and down the door. Someone was breaking in from the other side.

  "More stones!" boomed Odris. The Icecarls rushed to help her, forming a chain to pass on the stones that the stronger Spiritshadow pulled out of the wall.

  In a few minutes, the door was buried beneath a cairn of stones. Blue light still flashed up through the gaps, but even after the Chosen cut through the door, the piled-up stones would delay them for a little while.

  "Down with the established order," said Ebbitt. "Hurry! I shall shut the gate."

  Though Saylsen tried to get in front of her, Milla led the way down the steps. Not because she didn't trust Ebbitt, but if it was some sort of trap, she at least had the Talon to deal with it.

  The stair led down to a very damp, wet room with walls that wept beads of water. Algae was slowly dying all around, making it clear that the whole place had been submerged until very recently.

  Milla heard the wall grind shut above them as the last of her Icecarls entered the room. Shortly after, Ebbitt appeared. He pressed several stones on the floor in a particular combination, which made a section of the wall slide across to block the stairway behind them.

  "There's another way out, isn't there?" asked Milla as Ebbitt took off his saucepan helmet and wiped his brow with a patchwork handkerchief that he pulled out from under his shoulder plate.

  "Out? Out? We've only just got here," replied Ebbitt. "Of course there is another way out. We'll have to hope that no one else knows how to control the surge system, though."

  Milla looked around at the algae and the dripping water and sighed. It was good to have gotten away from the Violet wave and the Chosen, but she was still cut off from the rest of her forces. She felt the frustration of it deep inside every muscle.

  She wanted to run and shout and attack the enemy, but that was not wise.

  "Malen, see if you can reach the Crones," she ordered. "We will rest here for a little while."

  "We thank you for your rescue," Milla said formally to Ebbitt and the Chosen woman.

  "I haven't seen anything like that wave since Mercur's day," said Ebbitt thoughtfully.

  "Then you've never seen anything like it, because you aren't that old, Uncle," said the woman. With the help of her Spiritshadow, she stood up and looked at the assembled Icecarls. Her eyes fell on Saylsen. "Are you Milla?"

  Milla looked back and drew herself up on her toe a bit. The Chosen woman was quite a bit taller. She looked much more shaken by her efforts to control the Violet wave than Ebbitt. Her skin was very pale and her Spiritshadow was surreptitiously helping her stand up.

  "I am Saylsen, Shield Mother. That is Milla Talon-Hand, War-Chief of the Icecarls," pronounced Saylsen as she pointed at Milla. "Who are you?"

  "I am Graile Parel-Kessil," answered the Chosen. She seemed a bit surprised by Milla's age and Saylsen's announcement. "Tal's mother."

  "Tal's mother!" exclaimed Milla. "But he said you were sick, likely to die."

  "I was poisoned," said Graile. "Tal brought me the antidote."

  "Tal is here?" asked Milla. "That is good. Why is he not with you?"

  "He was captured when he came to me," Graile explained. "Ebbitt says he has been taken to the Hall of Nightmares. The Codex told him."

  Milla frowned. Her first priority was to rejoin her forces and find out where the main host was. But Tal in the Hall of Nightmares? For all his failings, she did not want him to be killed, or end up like Bennem, wandering inside his own head forever.

  "Tal must be rescued, though I cannot see yet how it can be done," pronounced Milla.

  "Ebbitt told me that--" Graile said.

  "When did you speak to the Codex?" interrupted Malen.

  "Er, quite recently. The Codex also told me that Sushin has Tal's Sunstone," said Ebbitt. For once his voice didn't quaver and he didn't sound half-crazy, though his fingers were beating on his crystal breastplate in a nervous way. "Half of the Violet Keystone, the Codex said. I didn't believe the thing, for I had split that stone myself. But then I saw the Violet wave, and I am guessing that was your work, Milla Thingummy-Hand. So maybe it is true."

  "I did make the wave," said Milla.

  "May I see your Sunstone?" asked Ebbitt.

  Silently, Milla raised her hand to show her ring. Her Sunstone shone there as usual, a deep yellow shot through with red sparks. Ebbitt raised his own Sunstone, and shone a thin ray of Violet at Milla's stone. The ray hit, and Milla's Sunstone exploded into vibrant Violet light, flooding the whole room with its brilliance.

  "It is the Violet Keystone!" exclaimed Graile. "Or part of it."

  "Hmmpff," said Ebbitt. He seemed annoyed that he hadn't realized it before. Then he slowly and creakily sank down on to one knee, his crystal armor clanking. "I suppose this makes you Empress or something."

  "No, it is Tal who should be Emperor when the time comes," said Graile swiftly. "The candidate must be ratified by the Assembly, and Tal is a Chosen and also bears a Violet Keystone."

  "Not if Sushin's stolen it," Ebbitt grumbled. "I rather like the idea of an Icecarl Empress. Of course, we'll have to get rid of the old one."

  Graile flinched as Ebbitt spoke this treason and looked away.

  Milla stared down at the old man. She was tired and, though she would not admit it, slightly in shock from the fighting they had been through. What were they going on about?

  "Because I have the Violet Keystone I am the Chosen Empress?" she asked. "But doesn't that mean that if Sushin has the other half now the Chosen will say he is the Emperor? And Tal must be rescued whether he's Emperor or not."

  "Oh, Crow's gone off to rescue Tal," said Ebbitt airily, waving his hand around as if it suddenly had a life of its own. "And since Sushin is going off to destroy the Veil with his half of the Violet Keystone, it is hardly likely anyone will want to call him Emperor."

  Milla shook her head. She felt like she wasn't hearing properly. Crow and Tal were practically sworn enemies.

  "You've sent

  Crow to rescue Tal? And who is going to stop Sushin from destroying the Veil?"

  Ebbitt stopped waving. He pulled his arm back and bent his hand as if he were imitating a bird for children, moving his thumb and fingers like a beak. Then his hand-puppet spoke, with Ebbitt throwing and changing his voice so realistically that the Icecarls jumped.

  "Crow feels bad about Tal, so he will do his best to save him. I think he will succeed. Who will stop Sushin? Why, Milla, of course! And Ebbi
tt and all the little Icecarls will help."

  "Should we kill him?" asked Saylsen, frowning. This sort of madness could be contagious.

  "No," sighed Milla. "I fear that he is speaking the truth. We will have to stop Sushin. Only I don't know how, or even where we should go to find him."

  "The Seventh Tower," said Ebbitt, dropping his hand and speaking in his normal voice. "The Violet Tower. Everything will come together there, for better… or worse."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tal looked down at the pathetic remnant that had been Fashnek. Adras stood next to him, still rumbling with distant thunder.

  " 'It was Sharrakor who wounded me, in dragon-shape, and Sharrakor who gave me life. I should not have taken it from his hands,' " Tal said quietly, repeating Fashnek's last words. "What in Light's name does that mean? How can a dragon have hands?"

  "Jailer die," said Adras, which wasn't much help. "Where do we go now?"

  Tal considered for a moment, biting his lip in anxiety. There was no point in looking for the Underfolk, not since he'd accidentally killed Crow, Ebbitt, and the others. But perhaps he could join the Icecarls who were attacking the Castle. Adras had sensed that Odris was with them, so Milla must be there, too. At least Tal fervently hoped so. Otherwise she would have gone to the Ice, and that would be another death on his conscience.

  But Tal knew he couldn't just go and join the Icecarls. There was Sushin, always the enemy. Tal had to admit there was very little chance his mother had taken the stone before he passed out. Sushin almost certainly had Tal's half of the Violet Keystone, so he finally had the ability to destroy the Veil.

  "I guess we have to go up," Tal said slowly. "Up to the Violet Tower. The Icecarls won't know what Sushin can do, at least not until it's too late. Even if Milla suspects Sushin, she won't know how to stop him."

  "Sushin is the one who throws poison?" asked Adras. He puffed himself into a ball that was a reasonable imitation of Shadowmaster Sushin.

  "Yes."

  "I don't want to go there," said Adras. "I want to go to Odris."

  "We have to go to the Violet Tower," repeated Tal. The more he thought about it, the more the urgency grew inside him. Sushin could be using the