Enchantment (6 page)

“We will. If we can get back to earth, we can join with Casterix, she’s powerful, and she knows how to focus her power.”

“Unlike me you mean.”

“Hmm, but she’ll teach you.” Yes, she would. Casterix had promised to train her, once they had rescued her mother and found a way to return to earth.

“There’s something else.”

“What?” She told him of the vision she had seen of the Goddess. “She was in some sort of enchanted sleep, but she was restless. She woke briefly and told me I must bring together the three witches with the mark. That only together could we wake her and save Arroway. But I don’t know of another witch with the mark.”

“Of course you do, at least one.” It came to her then. “You mean Casterix.” He nodded. “But I’ve no clue of a third. I’ve never heard of another.” Tallon sat, his back resting against the rock while he thought about the information. “Malachai is keeping the Goddess prisoner. He must have had her there since Casterix cast her spell.” He ran a hand through his long hair, and enlightenment dawned in his eyes. “He’s using the moon magic taken from the witches at birth to power the enchantment. Only Malachai could be that devious. Shit, it all makes sense now. That’s why he needs you alive—he needs your magic to strengthen the spell.”

“He sent you to kill me only days past. What’s changed? Why does he need me now?”

“I don’t know, but you said the Goddess was restless. Maybe that was how she reached out to you in the vision. At least we know Malachai won’t linger away from the Keep for long. He will have to check that his dirty little secret is safe.”

“Do you think it is his secret?”

“I hope so. I can’t believe The Council would ever agree to this.”“Maybe once, but perhaps they no longer have a choice. The Goddess would never condone the Laws of Segregation—they must know that. They’re finished if she is ever freed.”

“And our world is finished if she’s not.”

“But maybe they still believe Malachai—that it’s the witches who are bringing about the destruction of the land.” She stared him directly in the face. “You did.” Tallon winced. “You’re right. I thought we could seek their help, but it’s not safe. No, we must escape tonight, make them believe we are heading for freedom and then double back to the Keep.”

“Do you think we can escape?”

“In truth—I don’t know. But we have no choice but to try.” She knew that if they didn’t make it, they would die tonight or tomorrow. If Tallon were killed, she would want to die. But how could she? There were greater things at stake than her.

“Can we not have a little while longer?” He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her so she sat cradled on his lap. “We’ll move just before dawn, when the wards will be weakest and the guards may be sleeping. We have until then.”

“Then let’s make the most of it.” She stretched up and kissed him on the mouth, pushing her tongue between his lips, tasting him, and needing more, much more.

The sky was showing no sign of dawn when Tallon shook her awake. For a minute, she snuggled down, pulling her cloak around her, unwilling to face the realities of the day. Or rather the night—the moons had set leaving the clearing shrouded in darkness.

She couldn’t believe she had slept. But she felt so safe in his arms. He’d made love to her again, sweetly, then held her until her lids became heavy and finally sleep took her. She’d woken briefly in protest when he’d laid her on the ground.

“Sleep,” he whispered. “I’ll stand watch.” He’d wrapped the folds of her cloak tight around her, and she’d drifted back into slumber. Now, she rolled onto her back and stared up at him in the dim light.

“I love you,” she murmured.

“I know.” He stretched out a hand to her, and she clasped his palm in hers and allowed him to pull her to her feet. She peered around at the darkened clearing. The standing stones cast huge eerie shadows, and she shivered.

“The suns will rise in an hour,” Tallon said. “We need to be away from this place.”

“Where will we go?”

“For a start, we’ll lead them north away from the Keep. We’ll remain on that course until we get to a stream or river, then we’ll take to the water and double back.”

“Will that fool them?”

“I don’t know. It depends on what he believes we plan to do.

Hopefully it won’t occur to him that we would attempt to rescue your mother.” He gripped his staff in his right hand and held out his left to Shayla. “The guards are situated in a circle around us.

Keep close to me and we’ll slip between them.” Tallon moved silently like some great jungle creature, and Shayla tried to match his movements, walking on the balls of her feet, attempting to make no sound as they moved across the soft forest floor and into the total blackness beneath the great standing stones.

She allowed Tallon to guide her as they weaved between the trunks of the trees, heading due north away from the circle. They traveled until Shayla knew dawn must be close, but no light penetrated the thick canopy. At last, they came to a small stream that crossed their path, bubbling through the forest.

The water was cold, but shallow and they waded across, then up the opposite bank. They kept moving north for about half a mile, until they encountered a stretch of shaley ground, and Tallon halted.

“We’ll head back to the stream. Try and walk in your footsteps, hopefully they will lose our tracks here, or at least waste time picking them up again. We need to reach the Keep ahead of Malachai if we want any chance of freeing your mother.” Once back at the stream, they entered the water, and followed its course southeast. The waterway widened and deepened and soon she was breathing hard, the current tugging at her cloak, the cold invading her bones. They were still beneath a thick canopy of trees, and the sun barely penetrated.

When the trees thinned, Tallon halted. He tugged her up the bank and then stood, head raised, listening. Weak rays of sunlight were breaking through the branches, warming her face. They had heard no sound of anyone coming after them and some of the tension wound taut inside her, began to loosen.

Tallon’s hand tightened in hers. Her gaze flashed to his face.

“Quiet,” he whispered.

She bit her lip and shut her mouth, concentrating her senses on the forest around them. At first, she picked up nothing, then she caught the soft
thud
of hooves on the forest floor. Her own heartbeat increased as though echoing the approaching sound.

“Can we run for it?” she asked. The horses would be hampered by the trees; if they headed into the deep forest perhaps they still had a chance.

“They’re all around us,” Tallon replied.

He was right. The sounds were coming from in front as well as behind and closing in on them. She could make out the rustle of the branches as the huge animals pushed through. Dread rose up in her throat, and panic fluttered in her chest.

Was this the end then? Were they to die here? She wished fervently that she’d had the chance to perform the bonding ceremony with Tallon. Her fingers gripped his hand.

“Will we fight?” she asked.

“I’ll fight.”

“I can help, Tallon.” He dropped her hand, then raised his and cupped her cheek.

“You can’t risk it. You have no control. You have to promise me you won’t try and use the magic to save me.” Shayla wanted to refuse, to deny it. She needed to protect him. But a vision of Callum flashed before her mind. Casterix had wanted to save him, to bring him back. Instead, she had consigned him to a thousand year prison of loneliness and encroaching madness. And Casterix had been a fully trained witch, whereas Shayla was ignorant, and had no clue how her magic worked or where her power came from.

All her life, her magic had been a hindrance rather than a help, something to be ashamed of, something to hide. And later on...something to fear. When Tallon had caught her at the stone circle all those days ago, she’d fought him, using her magic, and in doing so had opened a portal between the worlds and ended up on Earth.

Her actions had been instinctive, and things had turned out well that time, but she’d had no clue what she was doing and might very well have torn a hole in the world that might never have mended.

Power lived inside her. Enough power to destroy worlds. She felt it like a living thing, coiled, sleeping, but waiting for a chance to break free. Tallon was right—she couldn’t risk it.

She nodded reluctantly. “I won’t.”

“Good.” Black despair filled her. If they killed Tallon, did she really want to live? But there were more important things at stake than her life: her mother, the Goddess, the very survival of Arroway.

Casterix had once told her that their magic came with responsibility. Which was ironic from a woman who had nearly destroyed the world and then spent the next thousand years in hiding, while the witches of Arroway were persecuted into near extinction.

But if they killed Tallon and took her alive, Malachai would steal her magic and use it against Arroway, putting the Goddess into an enchantment she would never awaken from. Shayla’s head pounded as she went over the possibilities—none of them good.

“We’ll find each other again,” Tallon said.

His soft words broke into her thoughts. “Do you believe that?”

“I have to.” He lowered his head and his lips touched her, lightly at first, then fiercely as though he would never get enough. Finally, he drew back. Shayla clung to him for a moment and then let him go.

The sound of hooves was loud now, and she could hear the breathing of the horses. Tallon glanced around the small clearing.

He gripped her arm and tugged her so she stood with her back to one of the huge, ancient trees.

He kissed her again, then dropped her hand and went to draw the sword from the sheath at his back.

“Give me your knife,” she said.

He hesitated, then looked at her, his eyes narrowed as if considering her request.

“I won’t use my magic, but I don’t want to be helpless. And I’ve been trained. I know how to fight.”

~*~

Tallon studied her for a long moment. He knew she was telling the truth; he had seen her fight. But he wasn’t sure he trusted her with a blade. She was hotheaded, impulsive.

She glared back at him. “If you die, I’ll not be taken alive. I won’t let them use me.” He closed his eyes briefly against the pain, then nodded. She was right, better a quick death at her own hand than what Malachai had planned for her. He drew the blade from the sheath and handed it to her, hilt first. She hefted it in her palm a couple of times, clearly at ease.

“If you do it, you need to do it fast.” He reached out and rested his fingers against her ribcage beneath the swell of her left breast. “Rest the point here and push upward into your heart.”

“Thank you.” At her calm acceptance, rage filled him. Rage against Malachai and the warlocks of the Order, but most of all against himself.

This was his fault, as much as anybody’s. How had he let things go this far? For so many years, he’d known something was badly wrong with the system, but he’d done nothing. Nothing, except take the job of Enforcer and allow himself to hide from the unpleasant truths he didn’t want to confront.

Then he looked into her face and saw she wasn’t calm at all.

Her green eyes reflected all the rage he was feeling. “This is not the end,” he said. “Whatever happens to us, there will be others.

Justice will be done, debts will be repaid.”

“I hope so.” Taking a deep breath, he forced his anger down. It would do no good to rail against himself and fate and...Instead, he turned from her, drew his sword, and stood waiting for their pursuers.

They came quickly. The first to arrive were two of the guard.

Could he kill them, take their horses, escape? But he could already hear the others closing in. The two dismounted, unsheathing their swords from the scabbards on their saddles.

Tallon recognized the men who approached him warily. He knew all the warlocks of the Keep. Some had even been friends.

He’d grown up beside Gavin, trained beside him.

“We don’t have to do this,” he said.

Gavin’s face remained impassive as he raised his sword. “Yes, we do.” And he lunged toward Tallon.

Tallon countered, his own sword smashing into the other man’s, deflecting the blow. Then both came at him together, and he tried to clear his mind of everything but the thrust and parry of the blades.

He made a swing at the second man, and Gavin’s sword slipped beneath his defenses, carving a line of fire through the flesh at his side. Pain flared as warm blood oozed from the wound.

Behind him, Shayla gasped, but he ignored the sound, and gritted his teeth. They meant business, and he realized he’d been holding back, a part of him unwilling to kill these men who he’d once thought friends.

He fought fiercely then, swinging his sword, until the clash of metal on metal filled the clearing. Using his staff, he swiped Gavin’s legs from under him, then thrust toward the second man, feeling the resistance as his blade cut through flesh. The man crashed to the ground.

Where was Malachai? Tallon tore his gaze briefly from his attackers and searched the clearing. He found the warlock immediately, and despair seized him. Malachai stood in the center of a small circle of the remaining guards. Their staffs touched, and he caught the low chant of a whispered spell.

Gavin staggered to his feet. Tallon tried to bring his sword around to face him, but his movements were sluggish and heavy.

Behind him, he heard Shayla cry out, but he couldn’t turn; his muscles were locking, his body turning to a useless lump of unyielding stone as the spell seeped along his limbs, across his chest, up his spine. He tried to counter with a spell of his own, but he couldn’t part his lips to speak the words.

In front of him, Gavin lowered his sword as if realizing Tallon was no longer any sort of threat. Tallon’s own sword was clenched uselessly in his fist.

So it was over. Malachai would probably kill him immediately and then take Shayla back to the Keep where he could use her magic for his own purposes.

The chanting ceased, and the circle of warlocks parted. Malachai stepped out and approached them, walking slowly, warily as though unsure of the effectiveness of his magic. Gavin stood aside so he could come to a halt in front of Tallon. Tallon’s second attacker rose to his feet, one hand clutched to his side, and then backed away to stand with the others.