Calling the Wild Page 17

  Nothing happened, but Moira hurried to the other side anyway. Like a hunted animal, the wide-open space made her nervous. Moira examined the boulders, many taller than she. It looked like the wall of the cave had fallen in, and when she looked up there was a deep scar in the wall. The rock there had no crystal, and the blackness was complete. With no light, Moira had no idea how deep the tear in the wall of the cave went.

  She reached out to the boulder, preparing to test the illusion.

  Fear, pain and anger zipped into her hand. The rocked ached with it, waiting only for a being of high mind to come, that it might share the suffering. Moira pulled her hand away with a yelp. Her cry echoed off the cave walls, sound subject to the laws of this place in a way that her physical body was not.

  Carefully she extended her hand once again, the rock’s emotions not taking her by surprise this time. Closing her eyes she opened herself to the suffering, resisting the impulse to pull her hand away or let her muscles draw up tight.

  Tears leaked from behind her closed eyes, but when the rock understood she would not go, would not leave it to suffer alone, it showed her why it ached in sorrow. In the darkness of her mind, Moira heard a far-off cry, a deep bellow of rage and suffering, the sound did not end, it was unwavering and deep. The rock was not here on the ground, but high in the cave wall, happily bearing the burden of the mountain above it. Into this peace the cry came, its low rage vibrating the rock. The rock held on, clinging to the others, not wanting to fall, not wanting to die and lose all it was.

  But the cry would not stop, would not end. The creature who cried out knew a suffering greater than the rock, greater than the mountain, and the rock fell, with a screaming crack the rock tumbled down, falling amid the others. Their demise left a great wound in the cave, but their demise served as a warning to the ones who cried out, reminding them to leash their rage.

  Moira opened her eyes, lashes spiky with tears.

  The rock was quiet beneath her hand now, and even when she pulled her hand away and put it back there was nothing. Her presence had exhausted the suffering that had lain dormant in what should have been cold stone.

  Moira wiped her cheek with her hands. She’d come to the rock looking for an answer, but found more questions instead.

  What creature’s pain had been so great that it caved in part of the rock and then personified it with reluctant suffering?

  Moira lifted her leg and stepped into the rock. She kept her weight on the back leg, and just as she was sure there was a black hole beneath the rock, her heel hit something real.

  With great care she rocked forward, evenly distributing her weight, one leg embedded in the boulder past the knee. So there was something solid below her. The cave was an illusion that lay over something else. Moira smiled in anticipation of telling Kiron. She already knew how he would look, one brow quirked down, cheeks drawn in tight, head tilted to the side, as he puzzled it out.

  Moira dragged her foot off of the rock.

  Her tennis shoe squeaked.

  Moira looked down at her feet, then very deliberately scuffed her feet. Squeak, squeak, squeak.

  It was the sound of rubber against high gloss, like a basketball court, or the polished floor of the museum.

  The cave was an illusion. She hadn’t gone anywhere. If she was still in the museum the way out must be the way in. She turned and retraced her steps. Moira watched her feet sink into the stone as she walked. The color of her shoes seemed bright in the black and white cave. Moira stopped. Why could she see the color on her shoes so clearly? She dropped to her knees and looked around. There was light, besides the crystals, illuminating the floor.

  The light came from a low tunnel. It was hidden by the spill of rock, and just big enough for a person to walk in, assuming he or she could walk while bent in half at the waist. The floor of the tunnel was elevated six inches above the cave floor, and therefore seven or eight inches above whatever she was really standing on.

  More from habit than need Moira lifted her foot high enough to clear the entrance. When she brought her foot down it didn’t go through the rock, her shoe came to rest on the uneven cold stone. Moira bent, running her fingers over the rough rock, feeling the smoother chunks of crystal in the coarse granite.

  She ducked into the tunnel and brought her other foot in, hands outstretched to the curved walls to steady herself as she started down the tunnel. In the small space her breathing was loud, and several times Moira held her breath, just to have silence. Counting the steps helped her concentrate on anything other than her asking herself why she was doing something so stupid as to enter a tunnel whose end point was completely unknown to her.

  Gradually another sound filled the tunnel, overtaking the puffs of her breathing. The sound was heavy and low, like the rush of water or wind, but continuous, no rise and fall in the noise.

  Moira dropped to her hands and knees as the sound grew louder, slowing her progress to pause after each movement. The tunnel ended, capped in stone, yet as she crawled closer her hair whipped out from her head, snapping against her face and shoulders.

  Sitting on her heels, Moira snatched her hair, pulling it and twisting it into a tail at the nape of her neck, pushing that under the collar of her shirt. A few thin strands blew around her head, but the bulk of it was out of her way. Moira tilted her head, looking at the crystal wall before her.

  She raised her hand, fingers curling and uncurling, a physical demonstration of her reluctance to touch a wall that echoed with unnatural sounds. Her fingertips brushed the rock, which melted away.

  Moira’s indrawn breath of surprise was lost in the rush of sound as wind poured into the now open tunnel. The wall had dissolved at her touch, light, true light, pouring into the tunnel, drowning out the crystals.

  Moira scooted to the edge, lying down on her belly to minimize the wind’s impact. She inched forward, fingers dug into the rock, toes of her sneakers braced against the floor. Bit by bit she extended her neck, looking out over the edge.

  A fire-lit tableau against a backdrop of rough-hewn stone lay below her. The monster’s long obsidian body flickering in the light, gold eyes watching those who fed the fire, and those who burned within it.

  The details lodged in her brain, rooting in a mind unprepared to deal with them at first sight. A high scream flickered amid the wind, the agony cutting through Moira, as swift and clean as an arrow through flesh. Multi-armed creatures carried a cage to the fire, lifting it up so it dangled from hooks over the flames. The beings inside, a withering mass of arms and legs, screamed and cried. Their flesh ignited, those who’d tried to lift themselves away by clinging to the top of the cage falling as they caught fire.

  Moira tore her eyes from the fire, looking to the edges of the stone chamber below, but what she saw brought her no relief. The walls were lined with cages, stacked five high and two deep. Every cage was full, filled with…humans.

  She’d tried to deny it when she saw them burning, tell herself that they had been two-legged, two-armed creatures from the magical world. Not humans. But she couldn’t deny it any longer.

  Choking on the bile that had risen in her mouth, Moira retreated into the tunnel, as the monster’s head whipped around, great snout lifted to scent the air. She scrambled backwards on hands and knees, no longer careful, too frightened to be quiet. Her hands ached from scraping over the rocks, the sweet burn clearing away her fog of horror.

  Moira turned in the tunnel and pushed to her feet, banging her head, hard enough to send an adrenaline rush of pain into her blood, where it mingled with the fear-pumped adrenaline.

  Bent in half, hands outstretched to protect herself, Moira raced through the tunnel, heading for the crystal-flecked cave. When she burst through, lungs ragged and burning, she did not stop running, but headed for the opposite side of the cave at a full sprint. She raced through spires of rock and small boulders, her feet pounding through the illusion. She had to get out, get away. She ran full tilt towards the stone wall ne
arest the place she’d arrived. Just before she barreled into and through a stone wall, Moira took a deep breath, and reached out for the one person in the world who made her feel safe.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The threads, still wrapped around her hand, tore from the tapestry, destroying the woven image. Moira stumbled back, sobbing in great gulps of air. Her face was wet with tears, hearing limited by the too-loud beat of her heart. Raising her hand, she tore the threads away, throwing them to the ground as if they were slimy tentacles instead of thread.

  The heels of each hand were scraped raw. Her head throbbed from knocking it into the tunnel wall. The abrupt return to the safety of the real world, or at least of the real world she knew, filled her with relief.

  Moira turned. “Kiron?”

  Kiron stood statue still, hands curled into fists at his sides. The runes in the cuff still glowed from the power she’d drawn to pull herself back.

  Alarmed, Moira looked down at herself, wondering if she’d changed in some way. Her body looked the same, and, when she pulled it forward to look at it, her hair was still blonde. Was she invisible?

  “Kiron, it’s Moira.”

  She stepped forward, steady but not threatening, reaching out to lay a hand on his chest. Just before her fingers touched him a fluttering of awareness trickled down her back. The hair on her arms stood on end as every instinct she possessed screamed that she was in danger.

  Her hand remained suspended between them, only a thin layer of air between her fingers and his chest.

  “Kiron?” What had happened to him while she was gone?

  “The Dark Prophecies,” he growled.

  Moira’s stomach rolled once, then clenched tight. “You…you know them?”

  “Those are the Dark Prophecies.” He jerked his chin at the tapestry behind her. The glasses were back in place, hiding his eyes.

  “Yes, they are,” Moira said slowly.

  “No one of heart seeks the Dark Prophecies.”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “There is always choice.”

  “All I need is to read—”

  “Read them? You think to read them?”

  “Yes, but just—”

  Kiron hit her, knocking her hand away from his chest with enough force to send her back a step. Moira stared at him in shock, cradling her hand against her belly.

  “You think to use the Dark Prophecies to fight those who hunt you,” he accused.

  “No, all I want is to be safe.”

  “The Dark Prophecies are powers that you have no right to call your own.”

  “I do not want them for my own. All I want is to be safe.”

  “The Maniac King, The Red Sea, The Sorrowful Lady. The Golden Death. Do you have any idea what those mean?”

  Not those ones. Moira remained silent.

  “You have no idea what you are tampering with.”

  “I know they’re evil.”

  “Fool. Your stupid human upbringing has polluted your mind. Good and evil do not exist.”

  Good and evil do not exist. Moira’s heart clenched. She’d heard those words before, from another man, on the eve of a terrible betrayal.

  “Good and evil are petty labels. There is only power, and the Dark Prophecies are a great power. You seek to use dark powers for your own gain.”

  “No.”

  “I have seen your enemies and know your struggle, but who are you that your protection is worth releasing the darkest magic in the world?”

  Moira bowed her head. He was wrong. She wanted to stop the Dark Prophecies.

  “Your selfishness disgusts me.” His words cut deep, drawing a startled breath from her. Any thoughts of revealing the truth to him vanished. He’d made his opinion clear.

  “Don’t talk to me like that.” She meant to words to come out strong, but they warbled. “If you are truly the man who has been with me these past few days, you would know that I don’t want to see bad things happen.”

  “Man?” he snarled.

  “It’s a figure of speech.”

  “No, it is you, forgetting that I am not human, forgetting that I know the true breadth of the world and how insignificant you are.”

  “Insignificant or not, it is my life.”

  “Your selfishness has been apparent since the day you ripped me from my home, to use me for your own ends.”

  “You know why I did it, you saw the way they came after me! I apologized to you, more times than I can count.”

  Kiron hung his head, and when he spoke, his voice was blank. Moira wished he’d yell again, his anger was preferable to the hollow tones he spoke with now.

  “The plants knew, I should have trusted them. Their deaths were more than enough warning, but I let myself fall under your spell, be blinded by you.”

  “Plants, what plants?”

  Kiron pulled the glasses off, meeting her eyes. Moira risked stepping forward, reaching up to cup his face.

  “Kiron, please.”

  He looked at her. “I don’t know what you are.” He slid his glasses on. “I’m leaving, Moira.”

  “You can’t.” She looked at the cuff.

  “I can, and must. I will not help you do this.” He motioned to the tapestry behind her.

  “It’s not what you think, I don’t want to use their powers. I just need to know.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s the truth,” she protested.

  “You should have told me what we were searching for.”

  “I didn’t think you would know what they were.”

  “I am a creature of magic, of course I know. That is a pitiful lie.”

  “Fine, you’re right. I was worried you wouldn’t help me if I told you what we were searching for. I thought you would refuse to help me out of fear of the prophecies.”

  “Fear? Do not try and prod my pride, witch.”

  “I need your help, your magic. That hasn’t changed.”

  “But I will no longer help you. I am leaving.”

  Kiron pushed her hand from his cheek, turned, and walked away, through the blue shield. A thousand protests rose to her lips as panic clouded her brain. Everything had gone wrong.

  She wanted to cry out to him, tell him that thinking of him had allowed her to escape the spell of the tapestry. He could not leave her, not when his presence had come to mean everything to her. Was it only a few hours ago that they wandered the galleries as he told her the sad tale of his people?

  The moment she’d came back from the cave, her overwhelming desire had been to feel his arms around her, know the touch of another caring being. There was no one in the world left to hold her, save the centaur who’d just walked away.

  When the first bolt of pain lodged in her belly, Moira thought it was her emotional hurt manifesting, but the pain grew. She pressed both hands to her belly, sinking to her bruised knees, fighting for each breath.

  Her spell.

  “Kiron, come back,” she pleaded, words fading in the empty gallery. Moira tried to rise to her feet, but fell, curling into a ball on her side. Surely he was suffering as she was, surely he would return.

  When he came she would do a better job explaining, he would understand. Black edged her vision, stomach so tight that she was forced to swallow again and again to keep from vomiting.

  He was not coming. He hated her. He would suffer rather then be in her presence.

  That thought brought agony deep enough to ring a cry from Moira’s lips. Reaching into the ball of pain Moira drew on the spell, pulling on Kiron’s magic. It came as a fitful trickle, tinted gray by pain.

  She wallowed in the pain, basked in, masochistically reminding herself that no one would ever care for her, that she was alone, and always would be.

  But she would not die, not like this.

  There was more to the spell than a connection that allowed her to draw magic. She’d never meant to use the full extent of her command over him, because doing so would make her the
selfish human he labeled her, but now he’d taken away that choice.

  Keeping a strong continuous draw on his magic, she used it to mask her own pain. Sitting up, Moira staggered to her feet, one hand wrapped protectively over her pain-riddled belly. She still stood within the tapestry’s protective wall of magic.

  The wall of magic was worse this time, thick and cloying. Her breathing, already stunted by the pain in her belly, became harder as her beleaguered lungs drew in the dense air.

  Something pressed on her hands, and Moira looked down to see the pulses of blue magic wrapping around her hands, clinging to her. The magic of the protective wall knew she’d tasted the truth of one of the Dark Prophecies, and saw her as kindred.

  When she finally pushed through to the pure air of the gallery the ghostly blue ribbons in the magic stayed with her, wrapped around her wrists like chains, their soft touch trying to draw her back with seduction rather than force. She twisted her wrists, trying to untangle the magic, which clung and stretched like taffy. Only distance freed her, halfway down the gallery the magic, now stretched as thin as the strand of a spider’s web, released her, sucked into the shield.

  She needed to get away, fast. She’d touched too many dark things, from the shield and tapestry to the cave. What Kiron did not know, and she could not say, was that it was her enemies who were tied to the Dark Prophecies, and if they had any connection with the dark magic she’d touched, they would know where she was.

  Hoping the magic had kept any witnesses away from this gallery, Moira walked a circle. It was small, and far from perfectly round, but when her foot touched the place where she’d started, a perfect circle snapped into place. Moira stepped inside and clear walls of magic rose, enclosing her.

  Moira whispered a prayer to the God and Goddess, an indulgence, for it was not good to evoke their aid except on the most difficult of spells. Moira asked them for strength, asked them for guidance, and asked them if she should be allowed to live.

  Moira closed her eyes and remembered the words she’d used to call Kiron. Wrapping her hands over her painful belly, she spoke with strength and conviction that belayed her pathetic position.