“Ten more chimes, and we’ll none of us make it out alive,” Bel muttered when he caught up with Gaelen.
White teeth flashed asel’dor-dust-coated face. “Care to make a wager on that?”
Bel laughed in spite of himself. “Ninnywit.” They had reached the offshooting hallway. A glance down the sconcelit corridor revealed only two doors. “You take those. I’ll take the doors on the right and work my way back around to you.”
Gaelen sped down the corridor. The first door was heavily warded, but one at the end of the short hallway was not. If there had ever been any guards, they had already fled their posts. He flung open the unwarded door and stopped dead in his tracks, shocked by the bright, sunlit beauty of the room. An unexpected paradise in the heart of darkness. More astounding still was the group of weeping, naked women huddled beneath the rocking “sun” suspended from the ceiling painted to look like a sky overhead. The ground beneath his feet was carpeted with small, fragrant white flowers, the blooms’ six starry petals shaped like tender bells. Most of the flowers had been crushed by booted feet, but they were still fragrant and still valiantly, stubbornly, clinging to life.
Amarynth. The Fey flower of life, which bloomed only in the steps of a Fey woman carrying an unborn child.
Amarynth. An abundance of it, blooming here in this evil place.
His eyes narrowed at the sight of two blue-robed Primages and severalumagitrying to force dozens of women into an open portal to the Well of Souls.
«Fey!»he cried on the path the warriors had forged amongst themselves.«Ti’Gaelen! There are fellanas here!»Red Fey’cha flew in a lightning-swift strike. Theumagidropped like stones, freeing the women who ran, weeping, towards the knot of fellow captives.
Mage Fire blasted towards him. He dodged to one side, flinging up a swift five-fold weave to meet the lethal Fire and launching half a dozen more Fey’cha in rapid succession. One Primage caught a glancing blow on his upper arm. A look of dismay flashed across his face. A moment later, convulsions racked his body and he collapsed, dead before he hit the floor. The other Mage shot more Mage Fire Gaelen’s way and made a threatening move towards the women, but when he saw the reinforcements running into the chamber, he spun around and leapt into the Well of Souls instead. The doorway closed behind him, and Gaelen’s last volley of Fey’cha spun harmlessly through the now-empty stretch of air to bury themselves in the trunks of a small grove of trees.
The warriors gathered around the women, Earth masters spinning swiftly to cover them in warm robes. There were thirty or more women in the strange chamber, mostly Celierians, but a dozen or more bore a visible glow of magic in their skins. At least half of the women—including most of the luminous ones—were with child.
Two women, in particular, made the Fey send up prayers of thanks to the gods, while thedahl’reisenamong them backed swiftly away.Shei’dalins,pale and dull-eyed, shackled insel’dor.Two of the three who’d been captured at the battle of Teleon in the fall.
“Nicolene-falla,”one of them murmured as Gaelen wrapped a cloak around her shoulders. “They took her.”
“Into the Well?” Gaelen asked quickly. Nicolene vol Oros was one of the Fading Lands’ most powerful healers, captured along with these twoshei’dalins,in the battle of Teleon.
“Nei,away somewhere else in this place. She would not obey, even to save herself, and they took her away. What they did to her…” Theshei’dalin’svoice trailed off and her pale face went even paler. “We felt her pain.”
«Vel Jelani!»Gaelen relayed the information quickly.«Nicolene vol Oros is here in this fortress.»
«Understood. I haven’t found her yet.»
“What about Lady Darramon?” Gaelen asked theshei’dalins.The fragile Great Lady Basha Darramon had been captured with these women at Teleon.
Theshei’dalinshook her head. “Dead.”
The ceiling overhead cracked. A massive chunk of rock plummeted from the roof of the cavern and landed in the small lake at the chamber’s center with a great splash. Beams of light, far brighter than the false sun that had lit the room, shone through the gaping hole overhead.
Gaelen covered his eyes and looked up, near blinded by the brightness. The hole in the ceiling widened as thesel’dorore simply… disintegrated and floated up, towards the light.“Kem’falla,”he breathed. He could feel her presence, taste her brightness with every shortened breath. She was the Light. She and Rain. And they were… glorious.
Their power pulsed in the air, showered his every cell with dazzling brightness and searing, electric heat. He could feel himself being pulled towards that brightness, wanting to join with it, to surrender up his essence, to be Unmade and transformed, as they had been.
The ceiling overhead dissolved. The blazing tairen bent its mighty head, and from the great, blinding suns of its eyes, a shaft of searing light fell upon him.«Go, ajian. Go now to the Well.»
Command and comprehension filled him with equal measure, and his body moved without conscious thought, backing away from the Light, backing towards the Fey and the women they’d come to rescue.
Rain and Ellysetta were glorious, all right. Glorious and unstoppable. What they had begun, they would not—could not—halt.
«Bel, we’re out of time. We have to go.»He turned to thedahl’reisen,who had retreated towards the door. “Go help General vel Jelani.Fellanasor not, grab every woman you find and get her out of here.” On the path forged between all the warriors who’d come on this mission, Gaelen cried,«Time to leave, kem’jetos! Head for the Well now!»
***
The power of the great Light tairen had grown to fill four levels of Boura Fell. Tendrils of light spun clockwise around the glowing mass of its center like the whirling silk scarves of Feraz veil dancers. As Mages died and theumagibound by them were freed, the brilliant notes of the Light tairen’s Song directed the innocent to the Well of Souls. Those who had willingly embraced the Dark and gorged their souls on evil, however, did not hear the shining notes of the tairen’s Song; all they heard was a deafening roar as Light consumed Darkness.
Everywhere the tairen’s Light touched, mass dissolved. Steel,sel’dor,rock, wood, Mages, and servants of the Dark: everything and everyone who did not flee before the growing brightness burned away as the Light touched them. Glowing sparks—the remnants of their existence—floated up, some small, sparkling white globes, like fairy flies rising from an evening glade, but most were darker red sparks, like the embers that rose on the heat of a bonfire. The sparks floated towards the mass of energy that was Rain and Ellysetta, joining their Light, feeding it. Just as Ellysetta could siphon the energy of those around her and channel it through herself, now she and Rain together absorbed all the evil that was Boura Fell, Unmaking the Darkness and channeling its power into Light.
Their brightness grew brighter. Layer after layer of Boura Fell disintegrated, consumed by their fiery radiance.
The Fey ran through the crumbling corridors of the dissolving Eld fortress, guiding the captive women towards the promise of freedom. The stairwell leading to the level housing the open Gateway to the Well was still intact, and they leaped up the stairs by threes and fours, Air masters helping those who could not manage the stairs themselves.
