Blackveil

“I don’t think they knew who I was.”

Laurelyn laughed lightly. Then they shall have a mystery, and Eletians love nothing better than a mystery to ponder and debate, and they will do so for centuries. But now my time ends. You’ve my thanks, Karigan, daughter of Kariny. You are as exceptional as I’d hoped you would be all those years ago when I brought your mother and father together in a forest glade. You must hurry to your companions now, and release your ability, for this piece of time is finished.

“Good . . . good-bye,” Karigan said.

Good-bye, child.

Karigan set off for the open doors of the castle, but she could not resist one last look at the true Argenthyne, and of Laurelyn reaching for the moon. She dissolved into motes of sparkling dust and then was no more. The clouds blanketed the moon, casting the grove in darkness.

Karigan hurried into the castle, her vision doubling again, and becoming even more blurred by tears of exhaustion, tears of loss. She had the feeling of some great magic passing from the world. Not the sort of magic she and her fellow Riders used, but the intangible, mysterious quality of something that was once wise and powerful and shining that would never be seen again. Laurelyn would live now only as pure legend.

Karigan shed her fading and staggered with the shifting of past and present, the profile of the first tower chamber realigning. She returned to a far dimmer, stagnant world.

The use of her ability always hurt her head and now the pounding in her skull distracted her from hurts on other parts of her body. She was cold. Passing through time made her cold.

She must seek out her companions, though she dreaded what she might find. She forced herself across the chamber and noted that Graelalea’s body remained undisturbed, the moonstone at low ebb.

Karigan limped through the winding corridor trying to keep her mind aware and working. She thought about the masks. If she’d chosen one of the three masks presented to her in the white world, which one might she have picked?

Certainly not the black one—it was vile. She’d known that without even touching it. She did not lust for the power it contained. The queen’s mask? No, not for her. She could not presume, especially knowing the king was absent from the mirror man’s little scene.

The king, the king . . . Why had he been absent?

That left the plain green mask, which seemed to go with being a Green Rider. Why hadn’t she chosen it?

“Because I don’t wear masks,” she answered aloud, startling herself.

She continued on, hearing the sound of fighting growing louder. When she entered the chamber of the moondial, she almost tripped over Ard’s body, still in the same place where he’d fallen with Ealdaen’s arrow in his throat. There was Grant’s body sprawled on the floor, a pair of nythlings feeding on him. The corpses of other nythlings were strewn about the chamber.

And Solan. Poor Solan. She could not even look at what remained of him, of what the dark Sleepers had done to him.

The corpses of several dark Sleepers also lay on the floor, but more knotted around the rest of her companions who stood back-to-back in a tight circle on the full moon of the moondial, swords, and Lynx’s ax, hewing up and down and side to side. About ten Sleepers assaulted them, far fewer than before, but still difficult odds.

They were all so involved that no one appeared to notice her. She weighed her options, taking into consideration her weapons and her condition. Quickly she decided to use the one weapon that had served her best so far, and limped forward to meet the enemy.

CHANGING OUTCOMES

Karigan leaned her staff against her shoulder and drew out her moonstone. The light that blazed from her hand reflected again on the inlaid quartz of the moondial, raising walls of light around her companions. Attackers and the attacked were startled alike, but only the Sleepers recoiled. Her friends sprang to the advantage, running the unarmored Sleepers through with their blades, running them through and hacking again and again till they fell. They were hard to kill.

With each step that brought Karigan closer, the light grew in intensity, forcing the Sleepers to back off. A couple bolted. The others fell and her companions finished them.

A pall of silence hung over the chamber when it was all done and the light of Karigan’s moonstone settled to a comparatively low, steady glow.

“Where’ve you been?” Yates demanded. “We could have used your help here.”

If only he knew how much she had helped! If she hadn’t gone to the past and removed the Sleepers of then, Yates would not be standing here now. “How long was I gone?”

“Ten minutes at most. Felt a lot longer.”

Traveling through the white world did not obey the same rules as the normal world, accounting for Yates’ estimate and the much longer time period she felt she’d been away. It felt like years. In a sense it had been—centuries, actually. She swayed, light-headed and exhausted.

“Questions later,” Ealdaen said. “We should see to wounds and our dead. Telagioth and Lhean, guard the entrance to the corridor so we’ve no more intruders.”

Telagioth and Lhean trotted off across the chamber and down the corridor.

“There will not be many Sleepers,” Karigan told Ealdaen.

“I know,” he replied striding toward her. His armor was streaked with blood, but he appeared uninjured. Lynx and Yates followed behind. Lynx had the claw marks on his face she remembered from before, and Yates held his hand over a bleeding wound on his arm.

“You know?”

“You left with Laurelyn. But what was before is beginning to fade. Let me see your wrist.”