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They raced across the plains at a gallop with Maruck and Gralin in the lead and Tamrin and Rain following close behind. The clouds looked much like they had when she first came: dark and foreboding. The stale smell from before was also there, blown around by the wind. They’d make it to the door in time, but she was worried that the rain would come before the soldiers could return to Dolmeria.
They took one stop for water. To her surprise, Maruck took an empty waterskin and, using innate magic, drew water into it, and then passed it around.
“I thought it was too difficult to spare energy for things like that?” Rain asked.
“I’m training, so I practice every chance I get. It’s hard work, but I’m slowly getting better at orange.”
“Would you be a good candidate to replace Faramond, if he doesn’t return?” she asked.
Maruck shook his head modestly. “I don’t know… there are many more at my level,” he said, pouring water into a bucket he’d brought for the horses.
“I think you’d be a great candidate,” Tamrin said. “You’ve gone on quite a few hunting raids and came back without a scratch. And besides, magic like yours should at least be used for more important things than battle.”
He smiled at Tamrin’s eagerness. “I can’t see the Great Mother choosing me. I’m just a soldier. But we’ll see.”
When everyone had their fill of water, they set off again. Sooner than Rain expected, the stone archway was in sight, surrounded by green grass and little white-speckled red mushrooms.
“I don’t know how you’re going to make it work,” Maruck said, “but here we are.”
“Are you going to make it back in time?” Rain asked, sliding off Depla and giving her a parting pat on the neck.
Tamrin looked at the sky. “We’ll be fine if we hurry.”
Rain walked toward the circle but before she stepped inside, she turned back to the elves and smiled. “Thank you so much for your help. I think you can expect me back before too long, maybe even with friends. I’ll do whatever I can to help you in return.”
Maruck nodded and placed his hands together, making a slight bow while still atop his horse. “May you walk in the light of the Goddess.” Both Tamrin and Gralin did the same, but silently. Rain repeated the bow, hands together, and said a quiet “Thank you.”
Then she turned to the door. She recalled the image she needed to have in her mind for the trip back: the symbol for the elves, a tree encircled by twisting knots. With that firmly in her mind’s eye, she stepped over the mushrooms. Immediately the inside of the archway turned dark as nothing. A quick peek over her shoulder showed the three astonished faces of her companions. She gave them a quick smile and turned back to the archway, stepping through into the unknown.
***
In the nothingness that surrounded Rain, a name came to her.
Ellwood.
As her senses came back, she smiled to herself, pleased that she made it back safely. She took in the room around her, torches still burning as if not a minute had gone by. Her smile disappeared. Dar’Quath’s body was gone. She berated herself for not having the guts to check that he was dead before she left.
As she left the doorway, it closed and disappeared behind her, and she was completely surrounded by the painted walls. She hurried out of the chamber, the torches extinguishing behind her as she ran. She wondered how much time had passed.
When she reached the end of the hall and the dark stairwell yawned before her, she took the last torch out of its holder and held it before her. She climbed the stairs carefully and shook away the thought that the walls were closing in on her.
The stairway ended. She faced a solid wall of wood. She touched the wood, wondering what to do to make it open.
“Arok’Amon?” she said. Could the tree hear her? “I’m back. Can you open, please?”
Nothing. Not even a creak.
As she ran her hand over the wood looking for a crack, she wondered what had happened. Had Dar’Quath done something? Was she trapped here, now? Before panic completely set in, she took a deep breath. She had magic.
She let herself feel the power of the red energy, her body filling with strength. She noticed then how much easier it was to access her magic back in Ellwood. Placing the hand without the torch on the wood before her, she pushed.
The wood gave in the middle, exactly where she remembered the opening being before. She continued to push and the wood groaned, opening to reveal the dark forest beyond. When the opening was large enough, she stepped through, holding her torch aloft.
She knew, then, that the tree was dead. It wasn’t a visible sign, rather, something she felt. The feeling was so strong, so deep, tears came to her eyes. Even in the forest around her, there was a sense of something missing.
“Pan!” She whistled. “Here, boy!”
She started walking in the direction she remembered coming from, continuing to call out to Pan. There was a quiet, nervous whinny from the trees to her left and there was Pan, still laden with all her things.
He nuzzled her affectionately. He’d missed her, which could mean she’d been gone for at least as much time as had passed on Straldun. As she juggled the torch and mounted up, she realized the woodland creatures and plants that had been following her before weren’t around. She walked Pan on in eerie silence.
“Rain?” a voice whispered.
She whipped her head around. “Who’s there?”
Something small dropped out of the tree above her. It was Caemira.
“It is you, Rain! Oh, I’m so glad you came back!” The sprite scrambled up Rain’s arm and hugged her cheek.
“What happened?”
“It was horrible! A little while after you went down, a scary man made the tree go crazy! It started attacking its own children! I ran away as fast as I could, but a short time later, everything went quiet. The trees stopped talking all at once. It was like…”
“Arok’Amon died, which killed everything else.”
Caemira looked up at her, eyes wide. “Yes. I thought about leaving, because I thought you must be dead too, but I stayed for a few days just in case…”
“Well I’m glad you did.” Rain nudged Pan into a walk. “What does this mean, if the tree’s power is gone? Will something happen to Lake Dolmeria? And can the power be restored? I was able to come back through the door, so not all the power must be gone.”
“I don’t know.” Caemira perched on Rain’s shoulder and gripped it, peering into the woods, more frightened than Rain had ever seen her. “What happened down there? Did you get what you came for?”
Rain pulled the vial of red liquid out from under her collar. “A cure.” She put it back quickly.
Caemira smiled, giving Rain a touch of hope. “Wonderful.”
***
They rode back to Belmaeron in near silence, and Rain didn’t stop for anything in fear of getting back too late. She figured she might have another day or so before the attack started, but she had no way to tell for sure.
Calves aching but eyes wide awake from worry, Rain dismounted Pan as she neared Belmaeron. There wasn’t any fire or unusual smoke rising from the city, and she breathed a little easier.
“It’s so quiet.” Caemira crawled up Pan’s mane and sat between his ears. “Something’s wrong. The trees say something’s coming.”
“Just not too soon, I hope,” Rain muttered. Only Rowena and Aeraldor, if she told him, knew where she’d been. Going back to her room first was too much of a risk. She started toward the infirmary instead.
No one was in sight when she came to the circle of trees that housed the infirmary. She found the first room she’d healed people in, where the dryads and faeries had been, and left Pan off to the side of the tree. The door creaked as she inched it open.
Every bed was filled as before. They all appeared just as sick, if not more so. Some of them could have been dead. The stench in the air was of rotting plants.
Caemira, who had perched again on Rain’s shoulder, gasped. “I’ve never seen anyone so sick with the Soulblight.” Her voice was muffled from her hands covering her nose and mouth.
“I healed these people, not a few days ago. It’s like no one’s been tending to them.” She walked to the nearest bed and saw the dryad had turned almost completely brown and withered.
“She’s very close to death,” Caemira whispered.
An urgency compelled Rain to hurry out of the room. “I have to find Rowena. Maybe Aeraldor will know where she is.”
Rain closed the door behind her and mounted Pan. He started moving immediately. From the light in the sky, Rain guessed it was late afternoon, and she hoped someone would still be out practicing in the archery area.
The thunk of an arrow hitting its target resounded in the air as she neared the practice area. She dismounted, leaving Caemira with Pan, and nearly ran toward who she saw.
“Aeraldor!” She was so happy to see someone familiar that she disregarded formalities and hurried forward, throwing her arms around him. He bent down and embraced her. When they broke the embrace and she looked around, a group of elven archers were staring at her.
“Oh, I’m sorry…” she mumbled.
“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. “Excuse me, carry on,” he said to his students. “One by one now, practice what I’ve been demonstrating.” He pulled her aside to where the other archers couldn’t hear them.
“Rain, you have no idea how good it is to see you. Were you successful in your journey?”
She briefly showed him the vial around her neck, as she had done for Caemira. “A cure.” His eyes widened. “And I just visited the infirmary. Do you know if the patients have been tended to? They look worse than before I helped Rowena heal them. Would you know where she is?” She was breathless.
“I’m sorry, child, I don’t. I’ve been busy preparing the few soldiers we have available for the attack. I’ve heard whispers and rumors. Your predictions were correct. There is a force on its way here from beyond Ellwood, to the north. I’m working as hard as I can to get these soldiers in shape. I haven’t spoken to Rowena in a couple of days.”
“How long have I been gone?”
“About three days, near as I can tell. A day or two and it’ll be a week since your dream.” They stared at each other in silence as the full meaning of his words hit them. “Try looking everywhere in the infirmary, and I’ll search the city. You’ve been missing for a while, and we don’t want to make a commotion if you’re seen in the city. I’ll come to the infirmary as soon as I can.”
“Thank you.” She bowed briefly and returned to Pan and Caemira, overhearing Aeraldor telling the archers to continue practice without him.
Just as Rain expected, Rowena was nowhere to be found in the rooms of the infirmary. All she found was more patients, and none of them looked well. As she sat down outside one of the rooms and leaned against the tree, she thought of Shea. Thinking of how sick all the patients were, she hoped dearly that he wasn’t as bad as them.
A long time seemed to pass. Finally there was the sound of hoof beats on the ground nearby. Aeraldor approached with a body in his arms. It was Rowena.
Rain jumped to her feet and ran to the centaur. “What happened? Is she alright?”
“Is there an empty bed in one of these rooms?”
“No, they’re completely full.”
Aeraldor found a patch of healthy grass and kneeled, setting Rowena down gently. “She appears to be quite sick. I found her in her shop.”
Rain sat on the grass. “It looks like the Soulblight,” she said, feeling Rowena’s forehead. It was hot, and damp from sweat.
“You have the cure though, correct?”
“Yes.” She fumbled with the vial around her neck, her hands shaking. If this didn’t work…
She gently opened Rowena’s mouth and tipped the vial once, quickly. One bright red drop came from the vial.
Rain slipped the vial back under her collar, then waited and watched.
Rowena’s eyes fluttered open.
“Rain?”
“I’m here.” She couldn’t stop smiling. “How do you feel?”
“As if I just woke from a vivid dream. Weak, but in control of myself again.”
“That’s wonderful to hear,” Aeraldor said, a light in his eyes.
“Here, let me see if I can help you with your weakness.” Rain put her hands under Rowena’s head and called forth the healing yellow energy. Yellow tendrils laced her fingers, and Rowena’s feverish, tired look dissipated.
“Amazing,” Aeraldor whispered.
Rowena took a deep breath in and out when Rain finished her healing. “That feels marvelous.” Rowena sat up slowly, smiling. “Thank you, dear Rain.” She hugged her tightly, and by her strength, Rain knew she was back to normal.
“What’s been going on?” Rain asked as they stood up. “The people here in the infirmary look awfully sick.”
At this, Rowena turned away and lowered her head. “As I kept working on the patients afflicted with the Soulblight, I slowly got the curse myself, until I couldn’t tend to them anymore. It made me extremely pessimistic and negative, and I felt like nothing I was doing was helping.” She turned back to Rain and Aeraldor. “There were others that helped me tend to these people, and I don’t doubt they all became as sick as I was.” Suddenly, her eyes widened and she stared at Rain. “Wait a minute. How did you heal me? When you used your magic before, you could only heal their bodies, not their minds.”
Rain pulled out the vial and showed it to Rowena. “I got a cure.”
Rowena gasped. “You made it through the Hollow and back? That’s incredible!”
Rain told Rowena and Aeraldor of what happened since she’d left for the Hollow. She spoke of her fight with Dar’Quath, traveling to Straldun and Dolmeria, what she’d learned of the moon elves’ fate, and Lynara the healer.
“But when I came back, Dar’Quath was gone. He’d killed Arok’Amon and fled. I had to force myself out of the bowels of the tree.”
“Arok’Amon is dead?” She looked at Aeraldor. “But that means…”
Aeraldor stared back. “Lake Dolmeria…”
Rain felt a touch on her booted foot, and looked down to find Caemira. She bent down and let her sit on her hand, then brought her up to eye level to show Rowena and Aeraldor. “This is Caemira. She helped me find the Hollow.”
“Hello dear one,” Rowena said in greeting, and bowed slightly. “Thank you so much for guiding our friend.” Aeraldor smiled and nodded to the sprite.
Caemira giggled. “You’re welcome!”
“Now about that cure,” Rowena said. “We need to administer it to the patients as soon as possible. Do you only have that small vial?”
“There’s a way to make more. We’ll have enough.”
A thudding noise began and came closer. Rain turned her head and saw a guard running full-speed towards them.
Out of breath, the guard spoke to Aeraldor in bursts. “Rabid animals have been… attacking the ground level of the city… and we have reason to believe… the attack has begun.”
Aeraldor swore. “Continue administering the cure. Come with me,” he said to the guard, and headed toward the archery area.
“Rain.” Rowena put both her hands on Rain’s shoulders and looked intently at her. “How do you make more of this cure? I can give it to the soldiers I have in the infirmary first.”
“You only need a drop of it in water, and it will reproduce itself.”
Rowena nodded and led her to the room she used for storing healing tools. She picked out a wooden bowl, filling it using a nearby pitcher of water.
Rain removed the vial from her neck and let one drop fall into the bowl. The drop suddenly spread throughout the water, turning the whole bowl a deep shade of red.
“Marvelous,” Rowena said. “Is there anything else I should remember? Just give each person a drop?”
“Be careful not to touch it. The healer said the sensation would be nearly unbearable.”
“Easy, I can do that. Listen, Rain, I think you should take that vial of yours, since you have quite a few drops already, and go find Whiskey and other important members of the council, and make sure they’re healthy and ready for this attack. I can administer the cure by myself.”
“Are you sure? What if the cure takes hold of you again?”
“I’ll be fine. I worked with these people for much longer than a few hours to get as sick as I did.”
“Alright, then.” She hugged Rowena. “Be careful.”
“You, too, dear Rain. You’re the most valuable of us all.”
***
Rain rushed through the trees, nearing a staircase to the upper levels of Belmaeron. She wondered who she should go to first: who would be in the most danger, and who might be most necessary for the coming fight.
Air whooshed past her cheek and a thunk sounded on the tree trunk. She whipped her head around to find an arrow. It had been unbelievably close. The arrow was elven made, she was sure. She quickly scanned the trees for the attacker and saw an elven guard, far above.
“Don’t shoot! It’s Sister Rain, I’m on your side!” she shouted.
She wasn’t sure if all the guards new her name, or how much her story at the council meeting got around. Just in case he couldn’t hear her, she ran quickly up the staircase, making sure to keep moving. Another thunk sounded behind her. She wondered how many more people roaming the city had contracted the Soulblight.
Carefully she made her way her rooms on the third level of the city, figuring it would be best to get Whiskey first. It was eerily quiet, and the clouds above her were turning dark. As she got closer, shouts began on the ground level. She distinguished elven voices in the fray, but mostly there were animalistic, unearthly growls and howls. Craetons and cursed animals, she guessed. If they were going to get help from the council members, she had to hurry.
She opened the door and looked around the room. Whiskey was sitting in a chair, head in his hands.
“Whiskey?”
He didn’t look up.
She went up to him and touched his shoulder. “Are you alright?”
“You’re not really there,” he whispered. “You’re never coming back.”
“Of course I’m here, Whiskey! It’s me, Rain! I got the cure!”
He raised his head. She showed him the vial. “No, it can’t be.” He put his head back in his hands.
“No, Whiskey, listen to me. I’m really here. This is the cure. Put your head back, I’ll give you a drop.” Rain put her hand on his forehead.
Something seemed to awake in him at her touch, and he let her tilt his head back and give him a drop of the red liquid. His eyes went wide and after a few moments he looked around the room and finally at Rain.
“Why am I here? What’s going on?”
“Calm down, Whiskey. Put your head back. Let me make sure you’re fully healed.” She went around to the back of the chair and put her hands on the sides of his head. Yellow energy flowed out of her hands. She felt that he didn’t need quite as much as Rowena had, so she let go of the energy after about a minute.
“Feel better?”
“Completely. How did you do it?”
She showed him the vial of red liquid. “I have a cure. But I don’t have time to tell you how I got it yet. The battle has begun, and they need your help.”
“The battle?”
“The one you dismissed as just a dream.”
It was silent in the room for a moment, and the sounds of clashing swords and shouts were heard in the distance.
“Right. I’ll go.”
“Are there any other council members who might need the cure, who could help in the battle?”
“I don’t think so. As far as I know, I was the only one who helped cure the sick, apart from Rowena. Though, her other attendants might need some help, if she was affected.”
“She was worse than you, but she’s fine now. She’s healing the soldiers.”
“Why don’t you come help me, then? It’s time you use your magic for something other than healing and conjuring. Your power is great, you’ll be as much of a help as I am.”
“I suppose…” her thoughts went to Dar’Quath, and how she felt using magic as a weapon. “There’s someone I want to check on first.”
Whiskey smiled, the first time in a while. “Shea?”
She was too worried to be embarrassed. “Is he still in isolation?”
“I would guess so, but I haven’t heard anything. I’ve sort of been out of it lately.” He winked. He was definitely back to normal.
She smiled in return.
He walked to the door and opened it. “I need to get to Aeraldor and find out what I should do. Will you be alright walking to Shea on your own? If there’s a battle, it could be dangerous.”
“I know, Whiskey. I’ll be alright.”
They exited the room and closed the door, heading toward the staircase. As they neared the last walkway, a familiar figure came up the stairs and stopped in front of them.
Dar’Quath.